research for instruments

Research Methodologies: Research Instruments

Research Methodology Basics
Research Instruments
Types of Research Methodologies

Header Image

Types of Research Instruments

A research instrument is a tool you will use to help you collect, measure and analyze the data you use as part of your research. The choice of research instrument will usually be yours to make as the researcher and will be whichever best suits your methodology.

There are many different research instruments you can use in collecting data for your research:

Interviews (either as a group or one-on-one). You can carry out interviews in many different ways. For example, your interview can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. The difference between them is how formal the set of questions is that is asked of the interviewee. In a group interview, you may choose to ask the interviewees to give you their opinions or perceptions on certain topics.
Surveys (online or in-person). In survey research, you are posing questions in which you ask for a response from the person taking the survey. You may wish to have either free-answer questions such as essay style questions, or you may wish to use closed questions such as multiple choice. You may even wish to make the survey a mixture of both.
Focus Groups. Similar to the group interview above, you may wish to ask a focus group to discuss a particular topic or opinion while you make a note of the answers given.
Observations. This is a good research instrument to use if you are looking into human behaviors. Different ways of researching this include studying the spontaneous behavior of participants in their everyday life, or something more structured. A structured observation is research conducted at a set time and place where researchers observe behavior as planned and agreed upon with participants.

These are the most common ways of carrying out research, but it is really dependent on your needs as a researcher and what approach you think is best to take. It is also possible to combine a number of research instruments if this is necessary and appropriate in answering your research problem.

Data Collection

How to Collect Data for Your Research This article covers different ways of collecting data in preparation for writing a thesis.

<< Previous: Research Methodology Basics
Next: Types of Research Methodologies >>
Last Updated: Sep 27, 2022 12:28 PM
URL: https://paperpile.libguides.com/research-methodologies

Research Instruments

Resources for Identifying Instruments
Assessing Instruments
Obtaining the Full Instrument
Getting Help

What are Research Instruments?

A research instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to your subject.

Research instruments can be tests , surveys , scales , questionnaires , or even checklists .

To assure the strength of your study, it is important to use previously validated instruments!

Getting Started

Already know the full name of the instrument you're looking for?

Start here!

Finding a research instrument can be very time-consuming!

This process involves three concrete steps:

It is common that sources will not provide the full instrument, but they will provide a citation with the publisher. In some cases, you may have to contact the publisher to obtain the full text.

Research Tip : Talk to your departmental faculty. Many of them have expertise in working with research instruments and can help you with this process.

Next: Identifying a Research Instrument >>
Last Updated: Aug 27, 2023 9:34 AM
URL: https://guides.library.duq.edu/researchinstruments

Tests, Instruments & Measurement Tools

Researching a tool, accessing a tool, permissions for a tool.

What are Tests or Instruments? How are they used for research? And how can you find them in order to use them for your own research?

Test and Instruments are types of Measurement tools, and they are used by researchers and practitioners to aid in the assessment or evaluation of research participants, clients, or patients. The tools are used to measure or collect data on a variety of variables, depending on the research questions. Measurement tools include scales, indexes, surveys, interviews, observations, and more.

Below are steps to get you started with finding, obtaining, and using measurement tools in your own research. This list is by no means exhaustive, and should you have more specific questions, you will want to reach out to your liaison librarian. Not sure who that is? Use the link below to find out which librarian works with your program.

Who's my Librarian?

*This guide has reused material, with permission, from the University of Washington, Health Sciences Library Measurements Tools/Research Instruments guide: https://guides.lib.uw.edu/hsl/measure, maintained by Ann Madhavan.

Researching and Selecting Measurement Tools

Databases: Lavery Library has a number of databases that specialize in measurement tools. In the Databases section of this guide, you will be introduced to these resources and see example searches.
Books: Lavery Library has books in our Collection where you can find reviews of measurement tools, and also full versions of measurement tools. In the Books section of this guide, you will see a list of these titles, and examples of what types of tools are available from these resources.
K-12 Resource Center: The K-12 Resource Center has a selection of Formal Assessments available, these can be checked out for one week. In the K-12 Resource Center section you will learn how to search for these educational test kits.
Learn more about where you can search for measurement tools.

Obtaining and Accessing Measurement Tools

There's no one way to retrieve a measurement tool, sometimes the Library will have full versions available in our collection (in-print or online); sometimes you might need to request a copy through Interlibrary Loan, and sometimes using Google (gasp) is the best method.

Online: Sometimes tools will be available as an appendix to an article or dissertation, printed in a book with other tools, or even available freely online. Having the creator and title of a measurement tool in hand before searching for full versions will always make it easier.
Interlibrary Loan: You can always submit an ILL request for a measurement tool, and we will do our best to try and find a copy for you. Sometimes we need extra information from you to complete these requests, so make sure you respond promptly to emails asking for additional information.
K-12 Resource Center: Look for Formal Assessment kits in the K-12 Resource Center's collection.
Learn how to find full versions of measurement tools.

Permissions for Measurement Tools

Similar to how you would cite someone when referring to their research in your own, there are typically permissions that need to be given before using any measurement tool for your own purposes.

Copyright and obtaining permissions
Learn about how to use a measurement tool ethically.
Next: Researching a tool >>
Last Updated: Aug 6, 2024 1:40 PM
URL: https://libguides.sjf.edu/tests

Breadcrumbs Section. Click here to navigate to respective pages.

Using Research Instruments

DOI link for Using Research Instruments

Get Citation

Clear, accessible and practical, this guide introduces the first-time researcher to the various instruments used in social research. It assesses a broad range of research instruments - from the well-established to the innovative - enabling readers to decide which are particularly well suited to their research. The book covers:

questionnaires
content analysis
focus groups
observation
researching the things people say and do.

This book is particularly suitable for work-based and undergraduate researchers in education, social policy and social work, nursing and business administration. It draws numerous examples from actual research projects, which readers can adapt for their own purposes. Written in a fresh and jargon-free style, the book assumes no prior knowledge and is firmly rooted in the authors' own extensive research experience. Using Research Instruments is the ideal companion volume to The Researcher's Toolkit. Together they offer a superb practical introduction to conducting a social research project.

Chapter | 6 pages, introduction, chapter 1 | 9 pages, questionnaires, chapter | 17 pages, design issues and other considerations when using questionnaires, chapter | 10 pages, limitations, chapter 2 | 10 pages, conduct the interview, chapter | 2 pages, analysing the interview data, key textbooks focusing on developing and using interviews, chapter 3 | 19 pages, content analysis, chapter | 3 pages, key textbooks focusing on developing and using content analysis, chapter 4 | 24 pages, focus groups, key texts on focus-group research, chapter 5 | 7 pages, observation, chapter | 20 pages, planning and conducting your observation, chapter | 1 pages, key texts on observational research, chapter 6 | 25 pages, researching the things people say and do: an alternative approach to research, suggested reading.

Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Cookie Policy
Taylor & Francis Online
Taylor & Francis Group
Students/Researchers
Librarians/Institutions

Connect with us

Research Instruments (Tests & Measures)

How to use this guide, what are research instruments.

Locating Research Instruments
CINAHL (Nursing & Allied Health)
PsycInfo (Psychology)
ERIC (Education)

Research Librarian

For more help on this topic, please contact our Research Help Desk: [email protected] or 781-768-7303. Stay up-to-date on our current hours . Note: all hours are EST.

This Guide was created by Carolyn Swidrak (retired).

This guide will help you discover resources related to research instruments. This includes information about various measurement tools, including reviews, how to obtain a copy, articles about studies that use various instruments, and more.

If you are a doctoral student you may need to find a research instrument for your own use. Other students may need to find information about the use of research instruments. A good way to discover research instruments that may be relevant to your own research is by reading the methods section in research articles.

This guide provides information on how to find information about research instruments

using credible websites, or

Note: While the Regis Library can help you find information about tests and measures, we cannot obtain research instruments for you.

Research instruments are devices used to measure or collect data on various variables being studied. Examples include measurement tools such as:

questionnaires
observation schedules
interview schedules
Next: Locating Research Instruments >>
Last Updated: Feb 29, 2024 3:35 PM
URL: https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/research_instruments

Community Blog

Keep up-to-date on postgraduate related issues with our quick reads written by students, postdocs, professors and industry leaders.

What is a Research Instrument?

By DiscoverPhDs
October 9, 2020

The term research instrument refers to any tool that you may use to collect or obtain data, measure data and analyse data that is relevant to the subject of your research.

Research instruments are often used in the fields of social sciences and health sciences. These tools can also be found within education that relates to patients, staff, teachers and students.

The format of a research instrument may consist of questionnaires, surveys, interviews, checklists or simple tests. The choice of which specific research instrument tool to use will be decided on the by the researcher. It will also be strongly related to the actual methods that will be used in the specific study.

What Makes a Good Research Instrument?

A good research instrument is one that has been validated and has proven reliability. It should be one that can collect data in a way that’s appropriate to the research question being asked.

The research instrument must be able to assist in answering the research aims , objectives and research questions, as well as prove or disprove the hypothesis of the study.

It should not have any bias in the way that data is collect and it should be clear as to how the research instrument should be used appropriately.

What are the Different Types of Interview Research Instruments?

The general format of an interview is where the interviewer asks the interviewee to answer a set of questions which are normally asked and answered verbally. There are several different types of interview research instruments that may exist.

A structural interview may be used in which there are a specific number of questions that are formally asked of the interviewee and their responses recorded using a systematic and standard methodology.
An unstructured interview on the other hand may still be based on the same general theme of questions but here the person asking the questions (the interviewer) may change the order the questions are asked in and the specific way in which they’re asked.
A focus interview is one in which the interviewer will adapt their line or content of questioning based on the responses from the interviewee.
A focus group interview is one in which a group of volunteers or interviewees are asked questions to understand their opinion or thoughts on a specific subject.
A non-directive interview is one in which there are no specific questions agreed upon but instead the format is open-ended and more reactionary in the discussion between interviewer and interviewee.

What are the Different Types of Observation Research Instruments?

An observation research instrument is one in which a researcher makes observations and records of the behaviour of individuals. There are several different types.

Structured observations occur when the study is performed at a predetermined location and time, in which the volunteers or study participants are observed used standardised methods.

Naturalistic observations are focused on volunteers or participants being in more natural environments in which their reactions and behaviour are also more natural or spontaneous.

A participant observation occurs when the person conducting the research actively becomes part of the group of volunteers or participants that he or she is researching.

Final Comments

The types of research instruments will depend on the format of the research study being performed: qualitative, quantitative or a mixed methodology. You may for example utilise questionnaires when a study is more qualitative or use a scoring scale in more quantitative studies.

Tips for New Graduate Teaching Assistants at University

Being a new graduate teaching assistant can be a scary but rewarding undertaking – our 7 tips will help make your teaching journey as smooth as possible.

Thinking about applying to a PhD? Then don’t miss out on these 4 tips on how to best prepare your application.

Fieldwork can be essential for your PhD project. Use these tips to help maximise site productivity and reduce your research time by a few weeks.

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

Browse PhDs Now

The term research instrument refers to any tool that you may use to collect, measure and analyse research data.

Dr Britton gained his DPhil in material science research at Oxford University in 2010. He is now a Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering at Imperial College London.

Dr Ilesanmi has a PhD in Applied Biochemistry from the Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. He is now a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at the Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Join Thousands of Students

Finding Research Instruments, Surveys, and Tests: Home

Create Tests
Search for Tests
Online Test Sources
Dissertations/Theses
More about ERIC
Citing in APA Style
More about MMY
More about PsycINFO

What are Research Instruments

A research instrument is a survey, questionnaire, test, scale, rating, or tool designed to measure the variable(s), characteristic(s), or information of interest, often a behavioral or psychological characteristic. Research instruments can be helpful tools to your research study.

"Careful planning for data collection can help with setting realistic goals. Data collection instrumentation, such as surveys, physiologic measures (blood pressure or temperature), or interview guides, must be identified and described. Using previously validated collection instruments can save time and increase the study's credibility. Once the data collection procedure has been determined, a time line for completion should be established." (Pierce, 2009, p. 159)

Pierce, L.L. (2009). Twelve steps for success in the nursing research journey. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 40(4), 154-162.

A research instrument is developed as a method of data generation by researchers and information about the research instrument is shared in order to establish the credibility and validity of the method. Whether other researchers may use the research instrument is the decision of the original author-researchers. They may make it publicly available for free or for a price or they may not share it at all. Sources about research instruments have a purpose of describing the instrument to inform. Sources may or may not provide the instrument itself or the contact information of the author-researcher. The onus is on the reader-researcher to try to find the instrument itself or to contact the author-researcher to request permission for its use, if necessary.

How to choose the right one?

Are you trying to find background information about a research instrument? Or are you trying to find and obtain an actual copy of the instrument?

If you need information about a research instrument, what kind of information do you need? Do you need information on the structure of the instrument, its content, its development, its psychometric reliability or validity? What do you need?

If you plan to obtain an actual copy of the instrument to use in research, you need to be concerned not only with obtaining the instrument, but also obtaining permission to use the instrument. Research instruments may be copyrighted. To obtain permission, contact the copyright holder in writing (print or email).

If someone posts a published test or instrument without the permission of the copyright holder, they may be violating copyright and could be legally liable.

What are you trying to measure? For example, if you are studying depression, are you trying to measure the duration of depression, the intensity of depression, the change over time of the episodes, … what? The instrument must measure what you need or it is useless to you.

Factors to consider when selecting an instrument are • Well-tested factorial structure, validity & reliability • Availability of supportive materials and technology for entering, analyzing and interpreting results • Availability of normative data as a reference for evaluating, interpreting, or placing in context individual test scores • Applicable to wide range of participants • Can also be used as personal development tool/exercise • User-friendliness & administrative ease • Availability; can you obtain it? • Does it require permission from the owner to use it? • Financial cost • Amount of time required

Check the validity and reliability of tests and instruments. Do they really measure what they claim to measure? Do they measure consistently over time, with different research subjects and ethnic groups, and after repeated use? Research articles that used the test will often include reliability and validity data.

How Locate Instrument

Realize that searching for an instrument may take a lot of time. They may be published in a book or article on a particular subject. They be published and described in a dissertation. They may posted on the Internet and freely available. A specific instrument may be found in multiple publications and have been used for a long time. Or it may be new and only described in a few places. It may only be available by contacting the person who developed it, who may or may not respond to your inquiry in a timely manner.

There are a variety of sources that may used to search for research instruments. They include books, databases, Internet search engines, Web sites, journal articles, and dissertations.

A few key sources and search tips are listed in this guide.

Permission to Use the Test

If you plan to obtain an actual copy of the instrument to use in research, you need to be concerned not only with obtaining the instrument, but also obtaining permission to use the instrument. Research instruments are copyrighted. To obtain permission, contact the copyright holder to obtain permission in writing (print or email). Written permission is a record that you obtained permission.

It is a good idea to have them state in wiritng that they are indeed the copyright holder and that they grant you permission to use the instrument. If you wish to publish the actual instrument in your paper, get permission for that, too. You may write about the instrument without obtaining permission. (But remember to cite it!)

If someone posts a published test or instrument without the permission of the copyright holder, they are violating copyright and could be legally liable.

Subject Guide

Next: Create Tests >>
Last Updated: Jul 30, 2024 9:45 AM
URL: https://library.indianastate.edu/instruments

Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy

Home / Help
OT ejournals

About Research Instruments

Databases for finding research instruments, find research instruments in instrument databases, find research instruments in literature databases.

Scoping Reviews
Health Statistics and Data
Writing Resources
Transformative Agreements / Read and Publish
Anatomy Resources
Step 1: ASK
Step 2: ACQUIRE/ACCESS
Step 3: APPRAISE
Steps 4 & 5: APPLY & ASSESS
Mobile Apps
NBCOT Exam Prep
Library Instruction and Tutorials
Research instruments are measurement tools, such as questionnaires, scales, and surveys, that researchers use to measure variables in research studies.
In most cases, it is better to use a previously validated instrument rather than create one from scratch.
Always evaluate instruments for relevancy, validity, and reliability.
Many older yet relevant, valid and reliable instruments are still popular today. It is time consuming and costly to validate instruments, so re-using instruments is common and helpful for connecting your study with an existing body of research.
Although you can conduct an internet search to find research instruments on publisher and organization websites, library databases are usually the best resources for identifying relevant, validated and reliable research instruments.
Locating instruments takes time and requires you to follow multiple references until you reach the source.
Databases provide information about instruments, but they do not provide access to the instruments themselves.
In most cases, to access and use the actual instruments, you must contact the author or purchase the instrument from the publisher.
In many cases, you will have to pay a fee to use the instrument.
Even if the full instrument is freely available, you should contact the owner for permission to use and for any instructions and training necessary to use the instrument properly.
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window Most comprehensive database of full-text for nursing & allied health journals from 1937 to present. Includes access to scholarly journal articles, dissertations, magazines, pamphlets, evidence-based care sheets, books, and research instruments.
Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI) This link opens in a new window Locate measurement instruments such as surveys, questionnaires, tests, surveys, coding schemes, checklists, rating scales, vignettes, etc. Scope includes medicine, nursing, public health , psychology, social work, communication, sociology, etc.
Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) This link opens in a new window Use MMY to find REVIEWS of testing instruments. Actual test instruments are NOT provided. Most reviews discuss validity and reliability of tool. To purchase or obtain the actual test materials, you will need to contact the test publisher(s).
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Abstract and citation database of scholarly literature in psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes journal articles, books, reports, theses, and dissertations from 1806 to present.
PsycTESTS This link opens in a new window PsycTESTS is a research database that provides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments as well as descriptive information about the test and its development. Records also discuss reliability and validity of the tool. Some records include full-text of the test.

Rehabilitation Measures Database RMD is a web-based, searchable database of assessment instruments designed to help clinicians and researchers select appropriate measures for screening, monitoring patient progress, and assessing outcomes in rehabilitation. more... less... This database allows clinicians and researchers to search for instruments using a word search or specific characteristics of an instrument, such as the area of assessment, diagnosis, length of test, and cost. The search function returns relevant results and provides the user with the ability to refine the search. The instruments listed in the database are described with specific details regarding their reliability, validity, mode of administration, cost, and equipment required. Additionally, information to support the user in interpreting the results, such as minimal detectable change scores, cut-offs, and normative values are included. A sample copy of the instrument is also provided when available.

<< Previous: OT ejournals
Next: Scoping Reviews >>
Last Updated: Sep 13, 2024 9:49 AM
URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/healthsciences/ot

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Research Instruments

This Guide provides access to databases and web based resources useful for locating a wide variety of research instruments.

American Thoracic Society Quality of Life Resource Instruments

The goal of this website is to provide information about quality of life and functional status instruments that have been used in assessing patients with pulmonary disease or critical illness.

Cancer Prevention Research Center

Cancer Prevention Research Center provides access to copyrighted psychological measures developed at the University of Rhode Island Cancer Prevention Center. Permission is granted to use these transtheoretical model-based measures for research purposes provided the appropriate citation is referenced. All assessment inventories are available for research purposes only.

CINAHL Plus Research Instruments

CINAHL Plus provides access to research instrument records, research instrument validation records, and research instrument utilization records. These records indicate which studies have used a specific research instrument and include the purpose and variables measured, sample population, methodology, other instruments, items and questions, where the original study was mentioned, and how to obtain the actual research instrument.

HealthMeasures

Funded by an NIH grant, HealthMeasures consists of four precise, flexible, and comprehensive measurement systems that assess physical, mental, and social health symptoms, well-being, and life satisfaction along with sensory, motor, and cognitive function: PROMIS®, NIH Toolbox®, Neuro-QoL, and ASCQ-Me.

Medical Outcomes Trust Instruments

Medical Outcomes Trust Instruments provides a list of instruments approved by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Medical Outcomes Trust. Records include a description of each instrument. Readers must contact the original author or source cited for each tool to obtain approval for its use.

PROQOLID™ was created in 2002 by Mapi Research Trust to extend access to Patient Centered Outcome resources to the scientific community. PROQOLID™ is supplied exponentially with new instruments throughout the year based on recommended sources such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and Research and Development scientific community.

Rehabilitation Measures Database

The Rehabilitation Measures Database was developed to help clinicians and researchers identify reliable and valid instruments used to assess patient outcomes during all phases of rehabilitation. This database provides evidence based summaries that include concise descriptions of each instrument's psychometric properties, instructions for administering and scoring each assessment as well as a representative bibliography with citations linked to PubMed abstracts. Whenever possible, we have also included a copy of the instrument for users to download or information about obtaining the instrument. This database was developed through collaboration between the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Department of Medical Social Sciences Informatics group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with funding from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The Rehabilitation Measures Database and its content were created by CROR.

Finding Research Instruments

Health & Psychosocial Instruments
Mental Measurements Yearbook
Find Journals by Title This link opens in a new window
Interlibrary Loan

Important Definitions

searchable research tool that includes records about a wide range of sources, primarily articles
collection of information about a single item, usually an article, within a database; includes several fields
section of a record that provides a specific piece of information about the item described (the title, the author, the abstract, etc.)

Truncation (*)

the star or asterisk key tells the database to look for any ending of a word; one example: searching for measure* in a database would find the words measure, measures, and measurement

Searching By Topic

To find instruments about your research topic, use keywords about it in one or more of the search boxes. In the final box, try using this string of words: test* OR measure* OR survey* OR questionnaire* OR scale* OR batter* OR inventor* OR checklist* OR instrument* OR pretest* OR posttest* OR interview* . It's generally unwise to limit to any particular field here, since the name of a test may show up in the abstract or the identifier, so to be comprehensive you need to search both.

To narrow your results, if they're too broad, consider using the ERIC Thesaurus to find the appropriate descriptor for your topic.

Alternately, you can use additional keywords to reduce irrelevant results.

ERIC does have a Publication Type limit for Tests/Questionnaires , but it significantly narrows your search results. That may make it difficult to find test name options that you could try in another database, even if they don't show up in ERIC.

Searching By Title

As mentioned in the Searching By Topic box above, limiting to a specific field isn't your best option here, so try putting the name of your instrument (if you know it exactly) in quotation marks. You can use the acronym instead, if you know it.

Searching For Evaluations

Follow the instructions for either Searching By Topic or Searching By Name , depending on what you're trying to do. In the final box, put this string of words: "Test Reviews" OR "Test Reliability" OR "Test Validity" OR "Construct Validity" OR "Content Validity" and use the drop-down menu next to the box to select SU Descriptors . This tells ERIC to search the descriptor field for terms relating to evaluation of tests.

If you're searching by topic, this will give you considerably more results than a more specific search. As an alternative, if you want only test reviews, just use "Test Reviews" instead, still using the drop-down to choose SU Descriptors .

What is ERIC?

ERIC is an excellent database for searching the education literature.

ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window This database, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, includes citations, abstracts, and full-text of scholarly journal articles, reports, and more related to all facets of education.
<< Previous: CINAHL
Next: Health & Psychosocial Instruments >>

Ask a Librarian

Last Updated: Aug 9, 2024 3:38 PM
URL: https://guides.lib.umassd.edu/instruments

Access Services & Library Information: 508-999-8750 Main Campus Telephone: 508-999-8000 • Reference Help Line: 508-999-8678 • Contact Reference Claire T. Carney Library • University of Massachusetts Dartmouth © 2018 285 Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base

Methodology

Research Methods | Definitions, Types, Examples

Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design . When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.

First, decide how you will collect data . Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question :

Qualitative vs. quantitative : Will your data take the form of words or numbers?
Primary vs. secondary : Will you collect original data yourself, or will you use data that has already been collected by someone else?
Descriptive vs. experimental : Will you take measurements of something as it is, or will you perform an experiment?

Second, decide how you will analyze the data .

For quantitative data, you can use statistical analysis methods to test relationships between variables.
For qualitative data, you can use methods such as thematic analysis to interpret patterns and meanings in the data.

Methods for collecting data, examples of data collection methods, methods for analyzing data, examples of data analysis methods, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research methods.

Data is the information that you collect for the purposes of answering your research question . The type of data you need depends on the aims of your research.

Qualitative vs. quantitative data

Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type of knowledge you want to develop.

For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data .

If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your research involves hypothesis testing , collect quantitative data .


Qualitative		to broader populations. .
Quantitative		.

You can also take a mixed methods approach , where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Primary vs. secondary research

Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys , observations and experiments ). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a government census or previous scientific studies).

If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll probably need to collect primary data . But if you want to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical trends, or identify patterns on a large scale, secondary data might be a better choice.


Primary	.	methods.
Secondary

Descriptive vs. experimental data

In descriptive research , you collect data about your study subject without intervening. The validity of your research will depend on your sampling method .

In experimental research , you systematically intervene in a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your research will depend on your experimental design .

To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary your independent variable , precisely measure your dependent variable, and control for confounding variables . If it’s practically and ethically possible, this method is the best choice for answering questions about cause and effect.


Descriptive		. .
Experimental

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

Academic style
Vague sentences
Style consistency

See an example

Research methods for collecting data
Research method	Primary or secondary?	Qualitative or quantitative?	When to use
	Primary	Quantitative	To test cause-and-effect relationships.
	Primary	Quantitative	To understand general characteristics of a population.
Interview/focus group	Primary	Qualitative	To gain more in-depth understanding of a topic.
Observation	Primary	Either	To understand how something occurs in its natural setting.
	Secondary	Either	To situate your research in an existing body of work, or to evaluate trends within a research topic.
	Either	Either	To gain an in-depth understanding of a specific group or context, or when you don’t have the resources for a large study.

Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you collect and how you prepare it for analysis.

Data can often be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, survey responses could be analyzed qualitatively by studying the meanings of responses or quantitatively by studying the frequencies of responses.

Qualitative analysis methods

Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:

From open-ended surveys and interviews , literature reviews , case studies , ethnographies , and other sources that use text rather than numbers.
Using non-probability sampling methods .

Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias .

Quantitative analysis methods

Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies, averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect relationships (in experiments).

You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:

During an experiment .
Using probability sampling methods .

Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among researchers.

Research methods for analyzing data
Research method	Qualitative or quantitative?	When to use
	Quantitative	To analyze data collected in a statistically valid manner (e.g. from experiments, surveys, and observations).
Meta-analysis	Quantitative	To statistically analyze the results of a large collection of studies. Can only be applied to studies that collected data in a statistically valid manner.
	Qualitative	To analyze data collected from interviews, , or textual sources. To understand general themes in the data and how they are communicated.
	Either	To analyze large volumes of textual or visual data collected from surveys, literature reviews, or other sources. Can be quantitative (i.e. frequencies of words) or qualitative (i.e. meanings of words).

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Chi square test of independence
Statistical power
Descriptive statistics
Degrees of freedom
Pearson correlation
Null hypothesis
Double-blind study
Case-control study
Research ethics
Data collection
Hypothesis testing
Structured interviews

Research bias

Hawthorne effect
Unconscious bias
Recall bias
Halo effect
Self-serving bias
Information bias

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question .

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .

If you want to measure something or test a hypothesis , use quantitative methods . If you want to explore ideas, thoughts and meanings, use qualitative methods .
If you want to analyze a large amount of readily-available data, use secondary data. If you want data specific to your purposes with control over how it is generated, collect primary data.
If you want to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables , use experimental methods. If you want to understand the characteristics of a research subject, use descriptive methods.

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).

In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .

In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked, writing strong research questions | criteria & examples.

What Is a Research Design | Types, Guide & Examples
Data Collection | Definition, Methods & Examples

"I thought AI Proofreading was useless but.."

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

Anthropology

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: A QUESTIONNAIRE AND AN INTERVIEW GUIDE USED TO INVESTIGATE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION OBJECTIVES AND THE ATTAINMENT OF CAMEROON'S VISION 2035

Southwest University in Chongqing

Discover the world's research

25+ million members
160+ million publication pages
2.3+ billion citations
Muarif Arhas Putra
Lolia Manurizal

Nura MUSTAPHA

Michael Kabasa
Ntu N. Nkomo

Jyoti Bhaskar

B S Farzana

Douglas Kellner

J. W. L. Adams
R. S. Peters
Martin Schultz
W. Kornblum
Martin E. Amin
Recruit researchers
Join for free
Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

In the field of research, there are endless possibilities for experiments, all involving unique tools to carry out the work involved to answer the questions. The many requirements of a researcher make it hard for everyone to know every tool available, especially as technology advances at such an exponential rate.

Although every scope of science is different from the next, one thing they all have in common is the need for research instruments to help carry out the experiments to search for knowledge expansion. Tools, equipment, software, and intellectual property are crucial components of every scientist’s daily life. Each of these pieces plays an integral role in filling in the missing gaps and puzzle pieces of solving answers, and research instruments have an essential role above all the rest. Understanding what a research instrument is and what’s available to you helps you as a scholar make informed decisions and keep records that track the usage of the tools so other researchers can emulate your work.

What is the Definition of “Research Instrument”?

It might seem like calling one tool a research instrument and another something else wouldn’t be a big deal, but as a scholar, it can mean the difference between obtaining funding and losing it. When you list the instruments you will be using in your experiment, it must look like you know what you’re doing. Putting one tool in the wrong category is a mistake that can be costly.

The term “research instrument” refers to any tool that is used by a scientist to obtain, measure, and analyze data. The data is sourced from subjects included in the research experiment and focused on the topic.

The instruments used have various roles. There are different tools that help you conduct quantitative, qualitative, and mixed studies. How you choose the instrument depends on what type of study you’re performing. However, whatever you use has to be described in the Methods section of your research paper. The more thoroughly you explain it, especially if you have created your own instrument, as in a survey, the better likelihood that someone else can repeat your study for authenticity.

In some cases, you may have to request permission to use the instrument, and this should be acknowledged in your paper so other scholars know they’ll have to do the same.

Characteristics of Solid Research Instruments

Whatever equipment you choose to use in your work, it must have consistent characteristics that can stand up under intense scrutiny. Should your final outcome end up having significant impactful consequences, you don’t want the choice of instrument you used to send the whole experiment falling down.

Keep these tips in mind as you determine the research instruments that will get you through your experiment:

They must be valid and reliable (the same results occur repetitively).
Use instruments that use a conceptual framework to do the job.
The tools have to be able to gather the data that pertains to the research topic and they should help you to test the hypothesis or answer the research questions being investigated.
Ensure all tools withstand scrutiny of bias and are appropriate in the context in which you are using them. Try to include tools that reflect the culture and diversity impacted by the research.
In your methodology section, include clear, concise directions on how to use any uncommon instruments or instruments that are predominantly used in your field of study.

Choosing the right instrument makes the work easier. Choosing the wrong one, though, can be damaging to the whole project.

Afghanistan
Åland Islands
American Samoa
Antigua and Barbuda
Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bouvet Island
British Indian Ocean Territory
Brunei Darussalam
Burkina Faso
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Congo (Democratic Republic of the)
Cook Islands
Côte d'Ivoire
Curacao !Curaçao
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
French Guiana
French Polynesia
French Southern Territories
Guinea-Bissau
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Isle of Man
Korea (Democratic Peoples Republic of)
Korea (Republic of)
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Liechtenstein
Marshall Islands
Micronesia (Federated States of)
Moldova (Republic of)
Netherlands
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Norfolk Island
North Macedonia
Northern Mariana Islands
Palestine, State of
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Russian Federation
Saint Barthélemy
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin (French part)
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Sudan
Svalbard and Jan Mayen
Switzerland
Syrian Arab Republic
Tanzania, United Republic of
Timor-Leste
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United States of America
United States Minor Outlying Islands
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Virgin Islands (British)
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Wallis and Futuna
Western Sahara

The New Research Core Directory is Live!

The Research Core Directory has launched! This new website allows researchers to search and locate shared research facilities, instruments, resources, services, and expertise across UC Davis. This comprehensive directory serves as a one-stop search for all researchers, including faculty, staff, students, and external partners. From the Directory, researchers can access a wide range of instruments and services through core facilities, including access to technologies, training, and high-quality scientific and technical services delivered by experts. The Directory is comprehensive and includes resources for biological and medical sciences, engineering, agriculture, environmental sciences, social sciences and the humanities, and it spans the Davis and Sacramento campuses and off-campus facilities.

The Research Core Directory is hosted through the Research Core Facilities Program in the Office of Research: https://core-directory.or.ucdavis.edu/

The Directory includes over 70 cores and facilities with more than 450 resources and services available to support research, and more are added each week. Explore the shared research resources available across UC Davis, including:

Cores: labs, centers, offices, and units that own resources and provide services
Resources: equipment, space, software, datasets, and other assets
Services: analysis, consultation, training, recording, and other expertise for hire or for free

We look forward to the positive impact this directory will have on our research community and external partners to support an environment of excellence and collaboration.

For more information or to advance questions or concerns, please visit the RCFP website .

Latest News & Events

October 17: The Long and Short of It: Assessing the Health Effects of Wildfire Smoke

Yuba Water, UC Davis, Wheatland and Beale Air Force Base Move Forward With Plans for Research

Quick links.

Looking to support research? Give today. Give

Office Units

event information against blue background

$241K NSF grant helps experts bring cutting-edge water research instrument to GVSU

BY Peg West Image credit - Photos by Cory Morse

A $241,000 National Science Fund grant has allowed the purchase of an advanced measuring instrument that will transform research capabilities for a group of interdisciplinary GVSU environmental scholars and their students, enabling beneficial high-tech training for undergraduate researchers.

The water isotope analyzer offers GVSU researchers and their students a way to now collect their own specialized data on water chemistry rather than having to send the samples to another laboratory for analysis, which Ian Winkelstern, assistant professor of geology, called "an important experience for students."

"For the students to be able to actually go collect a sample bring it to this device and work it all the way through to the end to get their own numbers out the other side is very meaningful," Winkelstern said.

Winkelstern is part of a group of faculty members who applied for the competitive grant to bring the cutting-edge device to GVSU. The other faculty members are Matt Cooper, associate professor of biology; Tara Kneeshaw, assistant professor of geology; and Ryan Otter, professor of ecological research, who works with the Annis Water Resources Institute.

The potential uses for this instrument are as varied as the disciplines. The measurements from the device will help indicate the chemical fingerprint for water, "and also where it's from and what it's experienced," Winkelstern said.

Water from a lake, groundwater, evaporated water, a stream and more all have different stories that this device will help researchers learn. Which water masses are mixing? Is there nitrate contamination? Is the rainwater on collected on campus recycled from Lake Michigan or did it come from a weather system that moved through? What have been the effects of climate change?

MORE: GVSU research team digs for fossils in South Carolina for better climate change understanding

For Cooper, who studies wetland ecology and Great Lakes ecology, one of the important things he measures is an ecosystem's metabolism, which is generated by the presence of life such as algae and invertebrates.

"We use metabolism to identify wetlands that are out of balance because of nutrient inputs," said Cooper, who is a researcher on a long-term project called the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program.

Understanding the metabolism gives a holistic view of the system, but measuring the metabolism is difficult, Cooper said. His goal is to use the measured water isotopes as estimates for the metabolism.

He said using the analyzer is a straightforward process, which will be a benefit for the undergraduate students as they can be quickly trained to use it as he collaborates with them on research.

Multiple faculty members who were part of applying for this grant also work within the recently established Environmental and Climate Science Group, which draws together researchers from across the university to focus on environmental sciences issues, with a particular focus on water systems, water resources and aquatic restoration. Winkelstern said the interdisciplinary collaboration was cited as a key reason the grant was awarded to GVSU.

Janet Vigna, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences , said the faculty members in this group "have a breadth of expertise related to environmental issues, management, and planning, and particularly beneficial to the West Michigan community, are distinctly adept in water-related analyses."

"Complex environmental issues require the engagement of scholars from multiple disciplines and often, high-performance equipment necessary to address our most pressing challenges," Vigna said. "A grant of this nature expands their opportunities, and those of their students, for collaborative inquiry. Their work is an outstanding model for the benefits of fostering interdisciplinary scholarly engagement."

Academics & Research
Annis Water Resources Institute
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Empowered Educational Experience
GVSU Experts

Measuring the Realisation of Well-Being Needs of Adolescents: Validation of the Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of Well-Being–Short (SPF-ILs)

Original Research
Open access
Published: 23 September 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

Anna P. Nieboer ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9676-0607 1 ,
Chantie C. Luijten 1 &
Jane M. Cramm 1

Adolescent well-being is increasingly scrutinized due to its decline. This study was conducted to validate a theory-driven instrument for the measurement of well-being needs with a sample of Dutch adolescents. The short (15-item) Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of well-being (SPF-ILs) measures whether a person’s needs for stimulation, comfort, behavioural confirmation, affection and status are met. In this study, its psychometric properties for adolescents were examined. Data collected in spring 2018 (T1) and spring 2019 (T2) from 1,304 Dutch adolescents (53.0% girls) aged 11–17 (mean, 13.7 ± 1.1) years were used. The instrument’s factor structure, internal consistency, construct validity, and gender and age factorial invariance were evaluated. The results showed that the SPF-ILs is valid and reliable for the assessment of adolescents’ well-being needs realisation. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the five-factor (stimulation, comfort, behavioural confirmation, affection and status) model, showing good internal consistency (α = 0.86 at T1, 0.88 at T2), convergent/divergent validity, as well as gender and age factorial invariance. Comparison across groups revealed the expected differences in the realisation of physical (comfort and stimulation) and social (behavioural confirmation, status and affection) well-being needs between girls and boys and over time. SPF-ILs use increases our understanding of how adolescents achieve well-being via the fulfilment of well-being needs. The maintenance of adolescents’ well-being is a global challenge, and this study revealed clear differences in adolescents’ realisation of well-being needs, increasing our understanding of what interventions are needed to support such realisation.

Explore related subjects

Medical Ethics

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Given the deterioration of well-being levels among adolescents, the examination of how this population achieves well-being has become increasingly important. Adolescence involves some of the fastest changes in human development, occurring from early (10–13 years) to middle (14–17 years) and late (18–21 years) stages. These changes are physical/biological (bodily), emotional/physiological (related to personal identity) and social [related to emotional separation from one’s parent(s) and strong peer identification] (Ross et al., 2020 ; Steinberg & Morris, 2001 ; Christie & Viner, 2005 ). As a result of these rapid and substantive transformations, adolescence is a critical period of life during which many factors that contribute to lifelong well-being may or may not be acquired or solidified (Ross et al., 2020 ). Good social and physical well-being enables adolescents to deal with the challenges of this life stage and eases their transition into adulthood. Well-being among adolescents in Western countries used to be quite stable and high (Inchley et al., 2016 ), but numerous studies have demonstrated that it has declined in recent years (e.g. Children’s Society, 2020 ; Due et al., 2019 ; Earle, 2016 ; Frith, 2016 ; Marquez & Long, 2021 ; Mishina et al., 2018 ; Twenge et al., 2018 ). Due to this decline, especially among girls (Cosma et al., 2023 ; Patalay & Fitzsimons, 2018 ; Yoon et al., 2023 ), the examination of adolescents’ well-being needs (needs that are fundamental for the realisation of well-being) has become increasingly important.

1.1 A Theory-Driven Instrument for the Assessment of Well-Being Needs

Nieboer and colleagues ( 2005 ) developed the Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of well-being–short (SPF-ILs), which is used to measure physical and social well-being needs based on social production function (SPF) theory. This instrument has been proven to be reliable and valid for general populations (Nieboer et al., 2005 ) and community-dwelling general, frail and Turkish-migration-background older populations (Nieboer & Cramm, 2018 ). Whether it can be used to reliably and validly assess adolescents’ well-being needs remains to be determined. Hence, the main objective of the current study was to examine the reliability and validity of the SPF-ILs for adolescents.

1.2 Adolescents’ Physical Well-Being Needs

According to SPF theory, physical well-being is achieved by obtaining sufficient stimulation and optimal comfort (Lindenberg, 1996 ; Nieboer et al., 2005 ). Stimulation is obtained, for example, by physical exercise or via mental and sensory stimuli, which produces arousal contributing to physical well-being, and requires (some degree of) physical effort (Ormel et al., 1999 ). The level of physical activity among adolescents tends to decrease with age however (Kwan et al., 2012 ; Sigmundová et al., 2013 ). Comfort refers to the absence of somatic and psychological conditions such as hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue and excessive stress (Nieboer et al., 2005 ; Ormel et al., 1999 ).

1.3 Adolescents’ Social Well-Being Needs

According to SPF theory, social well-being is achieved by obtaining status (e.g. through certain lifestyles and talents), behavioural confirmation (living according to one’s own or relevant others’ norms) and affection (love, intimacy and support from family and friends) (Lindenberg, 1996 ; Nieboer & Cramm, 2018 ; Nieboer et al., 2005 ). Adolescents spend most of their time in school, and social interaction with their peers is known to have important implications for their well-being realisation. For example, adolescents’ status at school is associated with significant long-term physical and social well-being (de Bruine et al., 2019 ; Kulawiak & Wilbert, 2020 ; McElhaney et al., 2008 ; Mundt & Zakletskaia, 2014 ; Ostberg & Modin, 2008 ). As adolescents pay increasing attention to their social standing among their peers, they become highly motivated to pursue peer status (Levy et al., 2004 ; Rubin et al., 2006 ), leading to substantial changes in this status during early adolescence that affect the realisation of well-being needs (McDonald et al., 2010 ). Popularity at school and in other social contexts (e.g. sports clubs) is the most relevant form of status for adolescents (Cillessen & Marks, 2011 ). It is based on peer social consensus, and adolescents find themselves in more or less desirable positions along the popularity continuum. Despite the acknowledgement of the importance of peer status in adolescents’ social life, limited research attention has been given to the need-oriented pursuit of peer status for well-being realisation.

Evidence also indicates that adolescents’ social needs play important roles in their behaviour. For example, adolescents’ behavioural development can be driven by the need for social acceptance and significant others’ expectations about their behaviour (Wright et al., 2012 ). Robust findings have been reported regarding the importance of behavioural confirmation in a wide array of situations (e.g. when experimenting with risky behaviours such as smoking, drinking, using drugs, engaging in unprotected sex, being physically aggressive and becoming involved in gang activities) throughout adolescence (e.g. Andrews et al., 2002 ; Dishion et al., 2005 ; Maxwell, 2002 ; National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 2006 ; Simons-Morton et al., 2004 ; Underwood, 2003 ). In their search for self-identity, adolescents desire feedback from significant others (parents and peers) in the form of behavioural confirmation, which is known to differ greatly among groups (e.g. depending on whether adolescents have low or high self-esteem, how they view their lives and whether they receive feedback on self-perceived weakness or strength) (Rosen, 2006 ).

Affection is also known to be important for adolescents’ well-being (e.g. Sijtsema et al., 2020 ). During adolescence, parents are focal providers of love and warmth and may thus be effective alternative sources of affection when it is difficult to obtain from peers. Parental warmth (or, conversely, rejection) has been found to have a much larger impact than that from peers on young adolescents (Sentse et al., 2010 ), with differences found between groups with positive and negative self-perceptions (Rosen, 2006 ).

Social well-being needs can become more or less salient depending on individual characteristics and social contexts (Sijtsema et al., 2020 ). Adolescents’ perceptions of popularity are influenced by diverse psychosocial processes, and notably by the implicit norms that shape the social hierarchies in their peer groups. The determination of (un)popularity often hinges on the prevailing judgment of the majority of classroom members, and judgments tend to differ among distinct social groups (Bravo et al., 2024 ). Sports team membership notably shifts teenagers’ social needs, increasing the significance of qualities such as teamwork, athleticism and sportsmanship. Recognition and acceptance become contingent on one’s performance on the team, a criterion that may not carry equivalent weight in the classroom setting. Moreover, social needs realisation differs among adolescent peer groups. For example, an individual may experience popularity and acceptance among close friends, but concurrently struggle with acceptance in larger social settings. In addition, the same social need may precipitate distinct behaviours depending on the context (i.e. in a school environment with peers or in the familial sphere with siblings and parents).

1.4 Gender Differences in Well-Being Needs Realisation

Although the order of many of the transformations that occur during adolescence seems to be universal, their timing and pace vary. For example, Inchley and colleagues ( 2016 ) showed in a longitudinal study that well-being decreased with age in adolescents of both sexes, and that overall well-being levels were generally higher among boys than among girls. In support of these findings, Patalay and Fitzsimons ( 2018 ) found that well-being during adolescence was highly unstable, and was more likely to decline over time in girls than in boys. This difference could be explained by girls’ increasing tendency to compare themselves socially with others, whom they perceive as ‘better’ than themselves (Booker et al., 2018 ), which is expected to manifest as a lower perceived status level. Gender differences in the realisation of affection and behavioural confirmation are less clear. Relative to boys, girls frequently report higher levels of loneliness (Cosma et al., 2023 ), display more empathy and sensitivity to distress in their peers, and fear rejection by their peers (McDonald et al., 2010 ; Rose & Rudolph, 2006 ; Yoon et al., 2023 ). Yet, they may still make more effort than boys to realise well-being via affection and behavioural confirmation to compensate for their lower perceived status levels, as the substitution in (social) well-being needs realisation is likely to occur (Nieboer & Lindenberg, 2002 ).

Clear gender differences in physical well-being needs realisation have been observed, with girls reporting lower levels of perceived health and more frequent health complaints (Cavallo et al., 2006 ). Girls are at greater risk of poor health during adolescence. This gender gap emerges at 13 years and increases with age; by the age of 15 years, one in five girls self-reports fair or poor health and one in two has multiple health complaints more than once a week. Based on these findings, we expect the level of comfort to be lower in girls than in boys. As physical activity levels tend to be lower among girls than among boys (Ekelund et al., 2012 ; Hallal et al., 2012 ), we also expect the level of stimulation to be lower in girls. Thus, the first hypothesis (H1) regarding differences in the realisation of well-being needs that was tested in this study was:

Girls will have lower status, comfort and stimulation levels than will boys.

1.5 Realisation of Well-Being Needs Over Time

In general, well-being declines over time during adolescence (Marquez & Long, 2021 ). Significant differences emerge between 11- and 15-year-olds, with more of the latter reporting multiple health complaints, reduced life satisfaction and fair or poor health; thus, a reduction in the level of comfort is expected (Cavallo et al., 2006 ; Cosma et al., 2023 ). As adolescents’, and especially girls’, physical activity levels have been reported to decrease over time (Ekelund et al., 2012 ; Hallal et al., 2012 ), their level of stimulation is also expected to deteriorate. Moreover, the need for approval from significant others increases during adolescence, making the realisation of behavioural confirmation more difficult. People lose (some of) their previous certainty and childhood values during adolescence, and acceptance in peer groups becomes increasingly important and difficult. Adolescents experience increased pressure with age to make and maintain friends and form intimate relationships, and school performance and other sources of stress increase during this period of life (West & Sweeting, 2003 ), threatening the realisation of behavioural confirmation and affection. The pressure to conform with peers and the exploration of identity contribute to stress in adolescence, and media influences and gender norms may exacerbate the disparity between adolescents’ lived reality and their perceptions or aspirations for the future (Cosma et al., 2023 ).

In the current study, we examined only short-term changes over a 1-year period. Nonetheless, we expected the realisation of affection, behavioural confirmation, comfort and stimulation to decline over time. The expectation for status was less clear. With increasing age, opportunities to realise status may increase for some adolescents, but decrease for those who are less successful in achieving popularity. In addition, indicators such as family status and income level are likely to remain stable over time. Thus, we formulated hypothesis 2 (H2):

Adolescents’ realisation of affection, behavioural confirmation, comfort and stimulation will decline over time.

To test the validity of the SPF-ILs for adolescents, we examined differences in the levels of physical (comfort and stimulation) and social (behavioural confirmation, status and affection) well-being needs realisation between girls and boys and over time.

The aim of this study was to validate a theory-driven instrument for the measurement of well-being (the SPF-ILs) with a sample of Dutch adolescents aged 11–17 years. We report data from two waves of a larger longitudinal study that involved confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), the assessment of convergent and divergent validity and subgroup comparisons. The validation of the SPF-ILs involved the comparison of affection, behavioural confirmation, status, comfort and stimulation levels between boys and girls, based on expectations derived from previous research (higher comfort, stimulation and status levels for boys than for girls). We also expected to observe a reduction in the realisation of well-being needs (except status) over time.

2.1 Participants

The present study was part of a larger project examining psychological and socio-ecological predictors of well-being among adolescents in the Netherlands (Luijten et al., 2021a , 2021b , 2022 , 2023 ). The data analysed in this study were collected in spring 2018 (T1) and spring 2019 (T2). The total sample consisted of 1,304 adolescents (53.0% girls, mean age 13.7 ± 1.1 years) from three secondary schools (T1: n = 1,124, 53.1% girls, mean age 13.7 ± 1.1 years; T2: n = 1,055, 55.4% girls, mean age 14.6 ± 1.1 years). The majority [ n = 875 (67.1%)] of the participants took part in both waves. Most participants were enrolled in higher (senior general and preuniversity) education (73.0%) and had Western (from Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) ethno-cultural backgrounds (56.8%); 27.0% were enrolled in lower (pre‐vocational) education and 43.2% had non‐Western (from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin and South America) ethno-cultural backgrounds.

2.2 Procedure

The three secondary schools participating in the present study provided preliminary active informed consent to their students’ participation. Informational emails outlining the study aims and procedure, the right to voluntary participation and data confidentiality were then sent to the students and their parents. Parents were able to decline their children’s participation (informed passive consent), and students could verbally decline participation at any time during the study (informed active consent). Overall, 6.2% ( n = 84) of the contacted parents and 1.0% ( n = 13) of the adolescents declined participation at T1; at T2, no parent and 0.8% ( n = 11) of the adolescents declined participation. Before filling out online questionnaires, each participant received a unique ID number to ensure the confidentiality of their data. Participants used their ID numbers in both waves of the study, allowing us to match the fully pseudonymised data. The questionnaires were administered during regular class hours under the supervision of the lead researcher (CL) and trained research assistants. Thereafter, the participants received small, non-financial encouragements (e.g. candy) and a card with the lead researcher’s contact information in case of questions and a list of websites with information about the questionnaire topics. At the end of each wave, one gift card (€5–10, depending on grade) per class and one gift (e.g. iPhone or PlayStation) per school were raffled off to the participants. The medical ethics committee of Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, established that the rules stipulated in the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act did not apply to this study (protocol no. MEC-2018‐055).

2.3 Measures

2.3.1 spf-ils.

The 15-item SPF-ILs (Nieboer et al., 2005 ) measures whether a person’s needs for stimulation, comfort, affection, behavioural confirmation and status are being met. Examples of items are ‘Do you feel that people really love you?’ (affection), ‘Do you really enjoy your activities?’ (stimulation), ‘Do you feel useful to others?’ (behavioural confirmation), ‘Have you felt relaxed?’ (comfort) and ‘Do people think you do better than others?’ (status). Mean scores range from 1 (never) to 4 (always), with higher scores indicating greater well-being. The reliability and validity of this instrument have been tested thoroughly and proven in the general adult population, as well as in older adults with frailty, older Dutch natives and older adults with migration backgrounds (Nieboer & Cramm, 2018 ; Nieboer et al., 2005 ).

2.4 Other Well-Being Measures

To provide data for the validity analyses, the participants completed four additional well-being measures: the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (MHC-SF), the Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C), Cantril’s ladder and the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-25 (RCADS-25).

2.4.1 MHC-SF

We used the Dutch adolescent version of the MHC-SF (Keyes, 2005 ; Luijten et al., 2019 ), which consists of 14 items measuring overall well-being. Participants were instructed to think about the past month and rated the items on a 6-point scale (0 = never, 5 = every day). The items measure the degrees of emotional ( n = 3; e.g. ‘How often did you feel happy?’), psychological ( n = 6; e.g. ‘How often did you feel good at managing the responsibilities of your daily life?’) and social ( n = 5; e.g. ‘How often did you feel that you had something important to contribute to society?’) well-being. Mean total scores were calculated, with higher scores indicating greater well-being. The MHC-SF has been validated for use with Dutch adolescents (Luijten et al., 2019 ) and showed good reliability in the present study (Cronbach’s α = 0.91 at T1, 0.92 at T2).

2.4.2 PANAS-C

The 5-item positive affect (PA) dimension of the 10-item PANAS-C (Ebesutani et al., 2012a ) was selected to measure participants’ emotional well-being, as reflected by the extent to which they felt enthusiastic and active. This measure was available only at T1. Respondents rated the frequency with which they felt joyful, cheerful, happy, lively and proud on a 5-point scale (1 = very little, 5 = a lot). Item scores were summed to derive total scores. The PA dimension of the PANAS-C has been shown to measure PA markers well among 6–18-year-olds (Ebesutani et al., 2012a , b ). In the present study, the Cronbach’s α value for this measure was 0.73.

2.4.3 Cantril’s Ladder

This single-item instrument (Cantril, 1965 ), a general cognitive evaluation of well-being, was used to assess participants’ current life satisfaction. Respondents were asked to grade their lives on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. Higher scores indicate greater life satisfaction. Cantril’s ladder is used worldwide and has been validated with adolescents in Scotland (Levin & Currie, 2014 ).

2.4.4 RCADS-25

The RCADS-25 (Ebesutani et al., 2012b ) was used to assess mental illness symptoms as indicators of negative well-being. This 25-item inventory was designed to measure depressive ( n = 10; e.g. ‘Nothing is much fun anymore’) and anxiety ( n = 15; e.g. ‘I worry about things’) symptoms. Item responses are structured by a 4-point scale (0 = never, 3 = always) and summed to yield total scores; higher scores indicate more severe depressive and anxiety symptoms. The RCADS-25 was developed for use with 8–18-year-olds, and its internal consistency has been supported in a school-based, clinic-referred juvenile sample (Ebesutani et al., 2012b ). In the present study, the Cronbach’s α values for the depressive and anxiety symptoms subscales were 0.85 and 0.84, respectively, at T1 and 0.88 and 0.86, respectively, at T2.

2.5 Socio-Demographic Variables

The questionnaire also solicited information about the participants’ gender, age, grade in school (7–9 at T1, 7–10 at T2), educational level (pre-vocational, senior general or preuniversity) and ethno-cultural background. The educational level and ethno-cultural background variables were dichotomised [low (pre‐vocational) and high (senior general and preuniversity) and Western and non-Western, respectively].

2.6 Analyses

The analyses involved the following seven steps. For all analyses, the significance level was set at 5.0% ( p < .05). First, descriptive statistics for the sample characteristics were calculated using SPSS (version 27; IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). Second, the SPF-ILs item data were screened by examining the means, standard deviations and numbers of missing values. Third, CFA was performed to test the validity of the SPF-ILs using the lavaan package (Lavaan, 2012 ) in R (version 4.3.1; R Core Team, 2017 ). Structural equation modelling enabled us to specify a five-factor measurement model by loading each item on its respective latent factor (stimulation, comfort, affection, behavioural confirmation and status). The CFA models were fitted by robust maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), which provides a test statistic that is asymptotically equivalent to the Yuan-Bentler ( 2000 ) T2 test statistic with standard errors that are robust against violations of multivariate normality (Lei, 2009 ). In addition to Satorra-Bentler χ 2 tests, which appropriately accompany MLE, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (Steiger & Lind, 1980 ), comparative fit index (CFI) (Hu & Bentler, 1999 ) and standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) (Hu & Bentler, 1999 ) were used to evaluate the absolute fit of the T1 and T2 models. RSMEA < 0.06, CFI > 0.95, and SRMR ≤ 0.08 indicated a good model fit, and RSMEA < 0.08 and CFI > 0.90 indicated a satisfactory fit (Bentler & Bonett, 1980 ; Hu & Bentler, 1999 ).

Fourth, the gender and age invariance of the SPF-ILs factor models (for T1 and T2) were examined in multigroup CFAs. The configural (similarity of model configuration), metric/weak (similarity of factor loadings), scalar/strong (similarity of intercepts), and strict invariance (similarity of residual variances) invariances were examined across genders (boys and girls) and grades (7–9 at T1, 8–10 at T2 Footnote 1 ), as age group indicators. Configural invariance was confirmed by RSMEA and SRMR < 0.08 and CFI > 0.95 (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002 ). A relative change of ≤ 0.010 in the CFI, supplemented by a relative change of ≤ 0.015 in the RMSEA or ≤ 0.030 in the SRMR, was taken to indicate that the null hypothesis of invariance should not be rejected (Chen, 2007 ).

Fifth, we calculated descriptive statistics (Table 5 ) and Cronbach’s α values (Table 6 ) for the (sub)scale data to evaluate the internal consistency of the SPF-ILs and assessed conceptual relatedness among (sub)scales by performing correlation analyses with SPSS. Cronbach’s α > 0.70 was taken to indicate good internal consistency (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1995 ).

Sixth, Pearson correlation analyses were performed to examine the construct validity of the SPF-ILs in terms of convergent validity relative to the alternative measures of well-being (MHC-SF, PA scale of the PANAS-C, and Cantril’s ladder) and divergent validity relative to the RCADS-25 as well as correlations between change scores of the SPF-ILs and these measures. Correlations in the range of 0.10–0.29, 0.30–0.49, and ≥ 0.50 were considered to be weak, moderate, and strong, respectively (Cohen, 1988 ). In the seventh and final step, we performed independent t tests using SPSS to test the study hypotheses.

Participant characteristics are summarised in Table 1 . 67% of the adolescents participated at both timepoints. Missing value rates for the SPF-ILs items were very low (< 1.5%; Table 2 ).

The measurement model yielded a significant χ 2 value for overall goodness of fit at T1 and T2, reflecting the sensitivity of this value to the sample size. The SRMR was well below 0.08, suggesting good overall model fit. The RMSEA was < 0.06, reflecting small differences between the estimated and observed models. The CFI was > 0.95, indicating that the data supported the specified relationships between variables (Table 3 ). Similar results were obtained at T1 and T2. The completely standardised solution of the confirmatory factor model for T1 and T2 is presented in Table 2 . All factor loadings were > 0.40, except that for item 13 (‘Are your activities challenging to you?’; λ = 0.35).

The multigroup CFA results are presented in Table 4 a and b. The five-factor model fit the data satisfactorily across genders and grades, supporting its configural invariance. Equality constraints were imposed on all factor loadings for all gender and grade groups, and the ∆RMSEA, ∆CFI and ∆SRMR indicated full metric invariance (< 0.01). Equality constraints were then imposed on all intercepts, and the three measures also indicated full scalar invariance. Finally, equality constraints were imposed on all residual variances, and the ΔCFI, ΔRSMEA and ΔSRMR supported full strict invariance. Thus, the SPF-ILs structure, factor loadings, intercepts and residual variances were the same, enabling well-being measurement with the same degree of accuracy, across genders and age groups.

Cronbach’s α values were good for the overall SPF-ILs and all subscales except stimulation ( α = 0.56), likely because of the weak factor loading of item 13. All associations between subscale scores, and between subscale and overall scores, were significant at T1 and T2 ( p < .001). Associations between T1 and T2 (sub)scale scores ranged from 0.44 for stimulation to 0.60 for comfort (all p < .001).

3.1 Construct Validity

Correlations of SPF-ILs scores with those for the other measures of well-being and mental illness are provided in Table 7 a and b. SPF-ILs scores correlated positively with PANAS-C (PA dimension at T1), MHC-SF and Cantril’s ladder scores, confirming convergent validity at both timepoints. Most of the correlations were moderate to strong. At T1, the correlation between Cantril’s ladder and the SPF-ILs status subscale score was weak. SPF-ILs scores correlated negatively with RCADS-25 scores, supporting divergent validity. The correlation with the status subscale score was weak, whereas the other correlations were moderate to strong. SPF-ILs change scores were moderately strong correlated with the change scores of the other measures of well-being further supporting construct validity ( r = .383, p < .001 for MHC-SF; r = .463, p < .001 for Cantril’s ladder; r =-.420, p < .001 for RCADS-25; r =-.428, p < .001 for Depression; and r =-.325, p < .001 for Anxiety).

Table 8 provides an overview of boys’ and girls’ SPF-ILs scores. As expected, boys had higher status, comfort and stimulation levels than did girls at T1 and T2. Over time, the realisation of affection, behavioural confirmation, comfort and stimulation, but not status, declined (Table 9 ).

4 Discussion

Given the deterioration of well-being levels among adolescents, the examination of how this population achieves well-being has become increasingly important. This study was conducted to validate the SPF-ILs, a theory-driven instrument for the measurement of well-being needs realisation, with a sample of Dutch adolescents. It showed that the SPF-ILs is a reliable and valid instrument for the assessment of adolescents’ realisation of well-being needs, with the same degree of accuracy in boys and girls and across age groups. CFAs yielded good fit indices for the SPF-ILs, providing support for the use of SPF theory to assess adolescents’ well-being. All SPF-ILs items loaded on corresponding latent dimensions, with only item 13 (regarding whether respondents’ activities are challenging to them) raising concern because its factor loading was below the threshold of 0.40 at T2. Clear consensus on the threshold for acceptable factor loading values is lacking; some researchers have suggested that factor loadings ≥ 0.3 are acceptable (Hair et al., 2010 ; Tavakol & Wetzel, 2020 ), but we find this value to be low. As we pointed out in a previous article on SPF-ILs validation for older Turkish migrants, item 13 should be rephrased to more clearly assess respondents’ engagement in stimulating and enjoyable activities, with the avoidance of the negative misinterpretation of ‘challenging’ as overly demanding or stressful (Nieboer & Cramm, 2018 ).

Regarding construct validity , the study results support H1, as they demonstrate higher levels of status, comfort and stimulation among boys than among girls. These results support the finding of Booker and colleagues ( 2018 ) that girls have greater difficulty realising status than do boys, possibly because they tend to compare themselves socially with others, whom they perceive as ‘better’ than themselves. As expected, we found no difference in the realisation of affection or behavioural confirmation between boys and girls. Girls may try to compensate for lower status levels via the realisation of these needs, although this may be more difficult for them than for boys given their sensitivity to their peers’ distress and greater fear of rejection (McDonald et al., 2010 ; Rose & Rudolph, 2006 ; Yoon et al., 2023 ). Physical comfort, conceptualised as feeling relaxed, in excellent health and physically comfortable, has been found to differ clearly between genders, in alignment with adolescent girls’ more frequent health complaints and greater risk of poor health (Cavallo et al., 2006 ). As expected, girls’ stimulation levels were also lower than those of boys, as girls have been consistently found to be less physically active (Ekelund et al., 2012 ; Hallal et al., 2012 ; Telford et al., 2016 ; Trost et al., 2002 ).

The study findings also support H2, confirming that the fulfilment of affection, behavioural confirmation, comfort and stimulation deteriorates over time in adolescence. We did not expect to find a deterioration in status over time, as adolescents try to increase their popularity (Allen et al., 2005 ; Bravo et al., 2024 ). The small but consistent decline in need satisfaction between T1 and T2, except for status, raises the question about its impact on well-being measures. Even though the decline is minor, it can still be significant. We only investigated the change during a 1-year timeframe. Over longer periods, these small changes might add up, impacting overall life satisfaction and mental health. A small decline, if persistent over time, could accumulate and lead to a more substantial negative effect on well-being. The research of Muraven and Baumeister ( 2000 ) indeed shows that small, continuous demands on resources (like need satisfaction) can deplete an individual’s capacity to maintain well-being over time. Positive experiences and emotions build resources over time, implying that small deficits can similarly accumulate to reduce these resources, impacting well-being (Fredrickson, 2001 ).

The SPF-IL scale could be a valuable tool for both diagnosing areas where intervention is needed and designing effective, tailored interventions for adolescents. By providing a detailed assessment of well-being across multiple dimensions, it helps identify specific needs, understand underlying causes, and prioritize resources. Also because the measurement of need fulfilment is linked to underlying satisfiers of the different well-being needs (Nieboer et al., 2005 ; Steverink & Lindenberg, 2006 ). It facilitates the creation of customized and holistic interventions that are responsive to the evolving needs of adolescents, thereby enhancing their overall well-being. Examples of interventions are Social and Emotional Learning Programs in schools to improve social and emotional skills, attitudes, and behaviour that help the realization of affection (see Durlak et al., 2011 ). For behavioural confirmation, praise is important when it enhances competence without an overreliance on social comparisons, and conveys attainable standards and expectations, which can be improved thru Positive Reinforcement Programs that validate adolescents’ behaviours and promote a positive self-concept (Henderlong and Leppe, 2002 ). A study by Wolfson and Carskadon ( 2003 ) examined the impact of sleep education programs on adolescents’ sleep patterns and found that such programs lead to improved sleep quality and daytime functioning. Educating adolescents about good sleep practices promotes better physical comfort. Physical comfort in the classroom can be improved thru ergonomically designed environments that reduce physical discomfort and enhance learning experiences (stimulation) (Hedge & Puleio, 2007 ). A study by Catterall et al. ( 2012 ) explored the impact of arts education on adolescent development and found that participation in arts and music programs enhances sensory stimulation, creativity, and emotional expression. Engaging in arts and music provides physical and sensory stimulation. In terms of evaluation, the SPF-IL scale could be used to establish a baseline of well-being before interventions are implemented and to measure progress over time (see for example Goedendorp et al., 2017 ). This helps in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions and making necessary adjustments. It also allows for more personalized interventions addressing the unique needs of each adolescent, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. This individualized support is more likely to be effective and meaningful as it allows outcome-based adjustments in interventions, ensuring they remain relevant and effective as the needs of adolescents evolve.

4.1 Limitations

The combination of the three social and two physical well-being needs into one total SPF-ILs score assumes the same weight for each need, although appropriate weights may vary among populations. A theory that could support the distinction of weights for the five needs remains lacking (Nieboer et al., 2005 ). Theoretically, the overall measure of well-being is defined by a Cobb–Douglas function of these goals (Lindenberg, 1996 ), which are assumed to be ‘needs’ up to a certain point, after which they become ‘wants’ (a paucity of one need can be compensated by the acquisition of more of another). For this reason, this measure must allow a low score for any need to reduce the overall well-being score. We do not know the extent to which the substitution of satisfaction in well-being needs, which SPF posits can occur to a limited extent (Lindenberg, 1996 ; Nieboer & Lindenberg, 2002 ), took place in our sample. Losses in resources or activities can have minor or temporary effects on the overall level of well-being if alternative sources for well-being need fulfilment are available (Nieboer et al., 2005 ). For example, adolescents experiencing difficulties with the achievement of status (e.g. by excelling in school or sports) may choose to intensify their social contacts to acquire affection and behavioural confirmation. Adolescents can also create buffers for the achievement of well-being by increasing the number and diversity of resources. For example, affection from family and friends is important, but having numerous friendships outside the realm of close friends, family members and a boyfriend/girlfriend may contribute only marginally to the achievement of affection (Nieboer et al., 2005 ). With regard to the relatively low association of status with the other well-being indicators, people are more likely to feel awkward about questions referring to status differences as compared to questions regarding the underlying satisfiers of other well-being needs. Moreover, in addition to fulfilment of the other well-being needs, status did not contribute significantly to overall life satisfaction but did contribute to positive affect in the 2005 study by Nieboer and colleagues suggesting differences in associations with different well-being measures (also see Steverink et al., 2020 for similar findings). The SPF-IL combines cognitive and affective components. Lower associations between status and other well-being measures may also be the result of differences in marginal returns. People build more buffers for affection than for behavioural confirmation and least buffers for status (Nieboer & Lindenberg, 2002 ). People with low status-levels use fulfilment of the other needs (i.e., affection, behavioral confirmation, comfort and stimulation) much more (or more effectively) for the production of their overall level of subjective well-being than people with high-status. Moreover, different need fulfilments make unique contributions to different types of well-functioning, implying that a mix of need satisfiers are needed for individuals to function well showing up in the strength of associations with different well-being measures (Steverink et al., 2020 ). Another study limitation concerns the study sample. To examine the representativeness of this sample, a comparison was made to the Health Behaviour in School-age Children (HBSC) study, where the sample is considered to be representative of the general Dutch adolescent population (Stevens et al., 2018 ). This comparison showed that our sample may be considered representative with respect to gender and age, but it differed from the HBSC study regarding ethnicity in that our cohort had over-representations of participants with a non-Western ethno-cultural background (also see Luijten et al., 2019 ) which may have biased our results. We did not validate the SPF-ILs for adolescents of different ethnocultural backgrounds in the current study. We did validate the SPF-IL instrument among older Turkish migrants in an earlier study (Nieboer & Cramm, 2018 ). Finally, we used SPF theory to assess realisation of well-being needs while other theories could be of interest. The work of Ryan and Deci ( 2000 ; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ), for example, (particularly within the framework of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), is relevant. SDT categorizes social needs under the broad term “relatedness,” which refers to the need to feel connected to others, to love and care, and to be loved and cared for. It encapsulates the desire for meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging in social contexts. While both SDT and SPF theory provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms that contribute to well-being, they differ in their emphasis on the nature of needs/goals and the mechanisms through which well-being is achieved. SDT highlights intrinsic motivation and psychological needs, emphasizing the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness for psychological health and personal growth. In contrast, SPF theory focuses on the efficient allocation of resources to fulfil physical (comfort and stimulation) and social (affection, behavioural confirmation, and status) well-being needs, detailing how individuals strive to achieve ultimate goals of physical and social well-being. Needs in SPF theory refer to a restricted set of basic physical and social needs that must be at least minimally fulfilled for a person to experience overall well-being. Rather than lumping social needs together under one overall need for relatedness, it differentiates three substantive social needs and two physical needs as well as their satisfiers. A thorough discussion of different need theories has been done elsewhere (see Steverink et al., 2020 ; Steverink & Lindenberg, 2006 ).

5 Conclusions

In a time of increasing mental health problems and deteriorating well-being, especially among adolescent girls, the examination of adolescents’ ability to achieve well-being has become increasingly important. Valid, reliable instruments for the assessment of the well-being of adolescent boys and girls across all ages of this phase of life are needed. This study showed the SPF-ILs is valid and reliable for the assessment of adolescents’ realisation of well-being needs. The comparison of findings across gender and age groups and over time provided clear insight into differences in adolescents’ realisation of physical (comfort and stimulation) and social (affection, behavioural confirmation and status) needs. These findings can guide efforts to maintain and address the deterioration of adolescents’ well-being, as they increase our understanding of unmet well-being needs, especially among adolescent girls.

One participant had to repeat grade 7, but was included in the similarly-aged grade 8 group for the age invariance analysis of the T2 data.

Allen, J. P., Porter, M. R., McFarland, F. C., Marsh, P., & McElhaney, K. B. (2005). The two faces of adolescents’ success with peers: Adolescent popularity, social adaptation, and deviant behavior. Child Development , 76 (3), 747–760.

Article Google Scholar

Andrews, J., Tildesley, E., Hops, H., & Li, F. (2002). The influence of peers on young adult substance use. Health Psychology , 21 , 349–357.

Bentler, P., & Bonett, D. (1980). Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychological Bulletin , 88 , 588–606.

Booker, C. L., Kelly, Y. J., & Sacker, A. (2018). Gender differences in the associations between age trends of social media interaction and well-being among 10–15 year olds in the UK. Bmc Public Health , 18 , 1–12.

Bravo, A., Krause, R. W., Ortega-Ruiz, R., & Romera, E. M. (2024). How adolescents’ popularity perceptions change: Measuring interactions between popularity and friendship networks. Social Networks , 78 , 12–24.

Cantril, H. (1965). Pattern of human concerns . Rutgers University Press.

Catterall, J. S., Dumais, S. A., & Hampden-Thompson, G. (2012). The arts and achievement in at-risk youth: Findings from four longitudinal studies . Research Report #55. National Endowment for the Arts.

Cavallo, F., Zambon, A., Borraccino, A., et al. (2006). Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health. Quality of Life Research , 15 , 1577–1585.

Chen, F. F. (2007). Sensitivity of goodness of fit indexes to lack of measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling , 14 , 464–504.

Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling , 9 , 233–255.

Children’s Society. (2020). The good childhood report 2020 . Children’s Society.

Christie, D., & Viner, R. (2005). ABC of adolescence: Adolescent development. Bmj , 330 (7495), 835–838.

Google Scholar

Cillessen, A. H. N., & Marks, P. E. L. (2011). Conceptualizing and measuring popularity. In A. H. N. Cillessen, D. Schwartz, & L. Mayeux (Eds.), Popularity in the peer system (pp. 25–56). Guilford Press.

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Erlbaum.

R Core Team (2017). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/

Cosma, A., Abdrakhmanova, S., Taut, D., Schrijvers, K., Catunda, C. (‎2023)‎. A focus on adolescent mental health and wellbeing in Europe, central Asia and Canada. Health Behaviour in School-aged children international report from the 2021/2022 survey . Volume 1. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe.

de Bruine, M., Giletta, M., Denissen, J. J. A., Sijtsema, J. J., & Oldehinkel, A. J. (2019). A healthy peer status: Peer preference, not popularity, predicts lower systemic inflammation in adolescence. Psychoneuroendocrinology , 9 , 104402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.104402

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The what and why of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry , 11 (4), 227–268.

Dishion, T., Nelson, S., & Yasui, M. (2005). Predicting early adolescent gang involvement from middle school adaptation. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology , 34 , 62–73.

Due, P., Eriksson, C., Torsheim, T., et al. (2019). Trends in high life satisfaction among adolescents in five nordic countries 2002–2014. Nordisk välfärdsforskning , 4 , 54–66.

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development , 82 (1), 405–432.

Earle, J. (2016). Children and young people’s mental health . British Medical Association.

Ebesutani, C., Regan, J., Smith, A., Reise, S., Higa-McMillan, C., & Chorpita, B. F. (2012a). The 10-item positive and negative affect schedule for children, child and parent shortened versions: Application of item response theory for more efficient assessment. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment , 34 , 191–203.

Ebesutani, C., Reise, S. P., Chorpita, B. F., Ale, C., Regan, J., Young, J., et al. (2012b). The revised child anxiety and depression scale-short version: Scale reduction via exploratory bifactor modeling of the broad anxiety factor. Psychological Assessment , 24 , 833–845.

Ekelund, U., Luan, J., Sherar, L. B., Esliger, D. W., Griew, P., & Cooper, A. (2012). Moderate to vigorous physical activity and sedentary time and cardiometabolic risk factors in children and adolescents. Journal of the American Medical Association , 307 , 704–712.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist , 56 (3), 218–226.

Frith, E. (2016). Centre forum commission on children and young people’s mental health: State of the nation . Centre Forum.

Goedendorp, M. M., Kuiper, D., Reijneveld, S. A., Sanderman, R., & Steverink, N. (2017). Sustaining program effectiveness after implementation: The case of the self-management of well-being group intervention for older adults. Patient Education and Counseling , 100 (6), 1177–1184.

HairJr., J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate data analysis (7th ed.). Prentice Hall.

Hallal, P. C., Andersen, L. B., Bull, F. C., Guthold, R., Haskell, W., & Ekelund, U. (2012). Global physical activity levels: Surveillance progress, pitfalls, and prospects. Lancet , 380 , 247–257.

Hedge, A., & Puleio, J. (2007). Ergonomics and learning in a middle school environment. Ergonomics in Design , 15 (2), 26–31.

Henderlong, J., & Lepper, M. R. (2002). The effects of praise on children’s intrinsic motivation: A review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin , 128 (5), 774–795.

Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling , 6 , 1–55.

Inchley, J., Currie, D., Young, T., Samdal, O., Torsheim, T., Augustson, L. (2016). Growing up unequal: Gender and socioeconomic differences in young people’s health and well-being. Health Behaviour in School-aged children (HBSC) study: International report from the 2013/2014 survey . World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. (Health Policy for Children and Adolescents; 7).

Keyes, C. L. (2005). Mental illness and/or mental health? Investigating axioms of the complete state model of health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 73 , 539–548.

Kulawiak, P., & Wilbert, J. (2020). Introduction of a new method for representing the sociometric status within the peer group: The example of sociometrically neglected children. International Journal of Research & Method in Education , 43 (2), 127–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2019.1621830

Kwan, M. Y., Cairney, J., Faulkner, G. E., & Pullenayegum, E. E. (2012). Physical activity and other health-risk behaviors during the transition into early adulthood: A longitudinal cohort study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine , 42 (1), 14–20.

Lavaan, R. Y. (2012). An R package for structural equation modeling and more. Version 0.5–12 (BETA). Journal of Statistical Software , 48 , 1–36.

Lei, P. (2009). Evaluating estimation methods for ordinal data in structural equation modeling. Quality & Quantity , 43 , 495–507.

Levin, K., & Currie, C. (2014). Reliability and validity of an adapted version of the Cantril ladder for use with adolescent samples. Social Indicators Research , 119 , 1047–1063.

Levy, I., Kaplan, A., & Patrick, H. (2004). Early adolescents’ achievement goals, social status, and attitudes towards cooperation with peers. Social Psychology of Education , 7 (2), 127–159.

Lindenberg, S. M. (1996). Continuities in the theory of social production functions. In S. M. Lindenberg & H. B. G. Ganzeboom (Eds.), Verklarende sociologie: Opstellen voor Reinhard Wippler (pp. 169–184). Thesis Publishers.

Luijten, C. C., Kuppens, S., van de Bongardt, D., & Nieboer, A. P. (2019). Evaluating the psychometric properties of the mental health continuum-short form (MHC-SF) in Dutch adolescents. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes , 17 (1), 157. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-019-1221-y

Luijten, C. C., van de Bongardt, D., Jongerling, J., & Nieboer, A. P. (2021b). Longitudinal associations among adolescents’ internalizing problems, well-being, and the quality of their relationships with their mothers, fathers, and close friends. Social Science & Medicine , 289 , 114387.

Luijten, C. C., van de Bongardt, D., & Nieboer, A. P. (2022). The roles of social media use and friendship quality in adolescents’ internalizing problems and well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies , 23 , 3161–3178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00539-w

Luijten, C. C., van de Bongardt, D., & Nieboer, A. P. (2023). Adolescents’ friendship quality and over-time development of well‐being: The explanatory role of self‐esteem. Journal of Adolescence , 95 (5), 1057–1069. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12175

Luitjen, C. C., van de Bongardt, D., Jongerling, J., et al. (2021a). Associations between adolescents’ internalizing problems and well-being: Is there a buffering role of boys’ and girls’ relationships with their mothers and fathers? Bmc Public Health , 21 , 1871. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11920-4

Marquez, J., & Long, E. (2021). A global decline in adolescents’ subjective well-being: A comparative study exploring patterns of change in the life satisfaction of 15-year-old students in 46 countries. Child Indicators Research , 14 , 1251–1292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-020-09788-8

Maxwell, K. (2002). Friends: The role of peer influence across adolescent risk behaviors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 31 , 267–277.

McDonald, K. L., Bowker, J. C., Rubin, K. H., Laursen, B., & Duchene, M. S. (2010). Interactions between rejection sensitivity and supportive relationships in the prediction of adolescents’ internalizing difficulties. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 39 , 563–574.

McElhaney, K. B., Antonishak, J., & Allen, J. P. (2008). They like me, they like me not: Popularity and adolescents’ perceptions of acceptance predicting social functioning over time. Child Development , 79 (3), 720–731. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01153.x

Mishina, K., Tiiri, E., Lempinen, L., et al. (2018). Time trends of Finnish adolescents’ mental health and use of alcohol and cigarettes from 1998 to 2014. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry , 27 , 1633e43.

Mundt, M. P., & Zakletskaia, L. I. (2014). That’s what friends are for: Adolescent peer social status, health-related quality of life and healthcare costs. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy , 12 (2), 191–201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-014-0084-y

Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin , 126 (2), 247–259.

National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (2006). Casa reports . Retrieved June 26, 2006, from https://www.casacolumbia.org/supportcasa/subcategory.asp?CatalogVar=0&cID=12

Nieboer, A. P., & Cramm, J. M. (2018). How do older people achieve well-being? Validation of the Social production function instrument for the level of well-being–short (SPF-ILs). Social Science & Medicine , 211 , 304–313.

Nieboer, A., & Lindenberg, S. (2002). Substitution, buffers and subjective well-being: A hierarchical approach. In E. Gullone, & R. A. Cummins (Eds.), The universality of subjective wellbeing indicators (Vol. 16). Springer. Social Indicators Research Series.

Nieboer, A., Lindenberg, S., Boomsma, A., & van Bruggen, A. C. (2005). Dimensions of well-being and their measurement: The SPF-IL scale. Social Indicators Research , 73 (3), 313–353.

Nunnally, J., & Bernstein, I. (1995). Psychometric theories . McGraw-Hill.

Ormel, J., Lindenberg, S., Steverink, N., & Verbrugge, L. M. (1999). Subjective well-being and social production functions. Social Indicators Research , 46 , 61–90.

Ostberg, V., & Modin, B. (2008). Status relations in school and their relevance for health in a life course perspective: Findings from the Aberdeen children of the 1950’s cohort study. Social Science & Medicine , 66 (4), 835–848.

Patalay, P., & Fitzsimons, E. (2018). Development and predictors of mental ill-health and wellbeing from childhood to adolescence. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology , 53 , 1311–1323.

Rose, A. J., & Rudolph, K. D. (2006). A review of sex differences in peer relationship processes: Potential trade-offs for the emotional and behavioral development of girls and boys. Psychology Bulletin , 132 , 98.

Rosen, L. H. (2006). The developmental interplay of behavioral confirmation and self-verification. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.

Ross, D., A., et al. (2020). Adolescent well-being: A definition and conceptual framework. Journal of Adolescent Health , 67 (4), 472–476.

Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W., & Parker, J. (2006). Peer interactions, relationships, and groups. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 571–645). Wiley.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). The darker and brighter sides of human existence: Basic psychological needs as a unifying concept. Psychological Inquiry , 11 (4), 319–338.

Sentse, M., Lindenberg, S., Omvlee, A., Ormel, J., & Veenstra, R. (2010). Rejection and acceptance across contexts: Parents and peers as risks and buffers for early adolescent psychopathology. The TRAILS study. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology , 38 , 119–130.

Sigmundová, D., ChmelÍk, F., Sigmund, E., Feltlová, D., & Frömel, K. (2013). Physical activity in the lifestyle of Czech university students: Meeting health recommendations. European Journal of Sport Science , 13 (6), 744–750.

Sijtsema, J. J., Lindenberg, S. M., Ojanen, T. J., et al. (2020). Direct aggression and the balance between status and affection goals in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 49 , 1481–1491.

Simons-Morton, B., Hartos, J., & Haynie, D. (2004). Prospective analysis of peer and parent influences on minor aggression among early adolescents. Health Education & Behavior , 31 , 22–33.

Steiger, J. H., & Lind, J. C. (1980). Statistically-based tests for the number of common factors. Annual meeting of the Psychometric Society, Iowa City, IA.

Steinberg, L., & Morris, A. S. (2001). Adolescent development. Annual Review of Psychology , 52 (1), 83–110.

Stevens, G., Van Dorsselaer, S., Boer, M., De Roos, S., Duinhog, E., Ter Bogt, T. (2018). HBSC 2017. Gezondheid en welzijn van jongeren in Nederland (p. 194). Universiteit Utrecht.

Steverink, N., & Lindenberg, S. (2006). Which social needs are important for subjective well-being? What happens to them with aging? Psychology and Aging , 21 (2), 281–290.

Steverink, N., Lindenberg, S., Spiegel, T., & Nieboer, A. P. (2020). The associations of different social needs with psychological strengths and subjective well-being: An empirical investigation based on social production function theory. Journal of Happiness Studies , 21 (3), 799–824.

Tavakol, M., & Wetzel, A. (2020). Factor analysis: A means for theory and instrument development in support of construct validity. International Journal of Medical Education , 11 , 245–247. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5f96.0f4a

Telford, R. M., Telford, R. D., Olive, L. S., Cochrane, T., & Davey, R. (2016). Why are girls less physically active than boys? Findings from the LOOK longitudinal study. PLoS One , 11 (3), e0150041. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150041

Trost, S. G., Pate, R. R., Sallis, J. F., Freedson, P. S., Taylor, W. C., Dowda, M., et al. (2002). Age and gender differences in objectively measured physical activity in youth. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise , 34 , 350–355.

Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion , 18 (6), 765–780.

Underwood, M. K. (2003). Social aggression among girls . Guilford Press.

West, P., & Sweeting, H. (2003). Fifteen, female and stressed: Changing patterns of psychological distress over time. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , 44 (3), 399–411.

Wolfson, A. R., & Carskadon, M. A. (2003). Understanding adolescents’ sleep patterns and school performance: A critical appraisal. Sleep Medicine Reviews , 7 (6), 491–506.

Wright, M. F., Li, Y., & Shi, J. (2012). Chinese adolescents’ social status goals: Associations with behaviors and attributions for relational aggression. Youth & Society , 46 (4), 566–588.

Yoon, Y., Eisenstadt, M., Lereya, S. T., et al. (2023). Gender difference in the change of adolescents’ mental health and subjective wellbeing trajectories. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry , 32 , 1569–1578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-01961-4

Yuan, K. H., & Bentler, P. M. (2000). Three likelihood-based methods for mean and covariance structure analysis with nonnormal missing data. Sociological Methodology , 30 , 165–200.

Download references

No funding was received for conducting this study. The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Socio-Medical Sciences, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Anna P. Nieboer, Chantie C. Luijten & Jane M. Cramm

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna P. Nieboer .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Nieboer, A.P., Luijten, C.C. & Cramm, J.M. Measuring the Realisation of Well-Being Needs of Adolescents: Validation of the Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of Well-Being–Short (SPF-ILs). Soc Indic Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03432-6

Download citation

Accepted : 03 September 2024

Published : 23 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03432-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Social production function theory
Adolescents
Stimulation
Behavioural confirmation
Psychometric evaluation
Measurement instrument
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

Langson Library
Science Library
Grunigen Medical Library
Law Library
Connect From Off-Campus
Accessibility
Gateway Study Center

Email this link

Ai in research.

Assessing AI Tools
Research Tools
Scholarly Communication & AI
Copyright, Citation & AI
Systematic Review
Writing Code
Working with Data
Mapping Literature
Searching Literature
Summarizing Literature

Digital Scholarship Services

DSS fosters the use of digital content and transformative technology in scholarship and academic activities. We provide consultative and technical support for a wide range of tools and platforms. We work with the campus community to publish, promote, and preserve the digital products of research through consultation, teaching, and systems administration. Our areas of expertise include data curation, research data management, computational research, digital humanities, and scholarly communication.

Use of AI is fraught with complications involving accuracy, bias, academic integrity, and intellectual property and may not be appropriate in all academic settings. This guide is meant more for academic researchers looking to utilize AI tools in their research.

Students are strongly advised to consult with their instructor before using AI-generated content in their research or coursework. For information on Generative AI take a look at the guide.

Assessing AI Research Tools

Here are suggested questions to ask when assessing the quality of AI tools for research:

Access	Do you have access? Is there a cost to use this tool? Is the cost determined by size of collection/free vs. premium features?
	Are summaries, extracted information, and other outputs accurate? Do they provide enough detail?
	Are the tool's results and recommendations relevant? Do the most relevant items sort to the top of the search results?
	Are its sources comprehensive for your discipline or topic? How much scholarly information does this tool access? Does it have access to actual data sources? How does it deal with retracted research?
	How well do the conversational features work? Do they show common pitfalls of generative AI chatbots (i.e. vagueness, hallucinations, reliance on biased or limited training data)?
	How will the chatbot conversations and personal data be used? Does the tool creator share my values on data security, ethics and privacy?
	What do I hope to learn? Will using this tool help me achieve that goal, or will it undermine my learning? Does this tool introduce more work to double check AI outputs?

<< Previous: Home
Next: Research Tools >>
Last Updated: Sep 24, 2024 8:59 AM
URL: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/research_ai

Off-campus? Please use the Software VPN and choose the group UCIFull to access licensed content. For more information, please Click here

Software VPN is not available for guests, so they may not have access to some content when connecting from off-campus.

Redirect Notice

Inclusion of women and minorities as participants in research involving human subjects.

Learn about the policy for the Inclusion of Women and Minorities in NIH-funded research and how to comply with this policy in applications and progress reports.

NIH is mandated by the Public Health Service Act sec. 492B, 42 U.S.C. sec. 289a-2 to ensure the inclusion of women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups in all NIH-funded clinical research in a manner that is appropriate to the scientific question under study. The primary goal of this law is to ensure that research findings can be generalizable to the entire population. Additionally, the statute requires clinical trials to be designed to analyze whether study outcomes differ for women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

Implementation

Applications & proposals.

All NIH-funded studies that meet the NIH definition for clinical research must address plans for the inclusion of women and minorities within the application or proposal. Using the PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trial Information Form, applications and proposals should describe the composition of the proposed study population in terms of sex or gender, racial, and ethnic groups, and provide a rationale for the proposed section. Any exclusions based on sex or gender, race, or ethnicity must include a rationale and justification based on a scientific or ethical basis. Investigators should also plan for appropriate outreach programs and activities to recruit and retain the proposed study population consistent with the purposes of the research project. Refer to the PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trial Information Form Instructions for complete guidance on what to address in your application.

Peer Review

Scientific Review Groups will assess each application/proposal as being "acceptable" or "unacceptable" with regard to the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities and women in the research project. For additional information on review considerations, refer to the Guidelines for the Review of Inclusion in Clinical Research . For information regarding the coding used to rate inclusion during peer review, see the list of NIH Peer Review Inclusion Codes .

Progress Reports

NIH recipients/offerors must collect and annually report information on sex or gender race, and ethnicity in progress reports. Refer to this Decision Tree for help determining reporting expectations for different types of studies.

Special Considerations for NIH-defined Phase III Clinical Trials

Applications & Proposals: If the proposed research includes an NIH-defined Phase III Clinical Trial , evidence must be reviewed to show whether or not clinically important differences in the intervention effect by sex or gender, race, and/or ethnicity are to be expected. The application or proposal must address plans for the valid analysis of group differences on the basis of sex or gender, race, and ethnicity unless there is clear evidence that such differences are unlikely to be seen.

Progress Reports: For projects involving NIH-defined Phase III Clinical Trials, annual Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs) should include a statement indicating the status of analyses of the primary outcome by sex or gender, race, and ethnicity. The results of these analyses should be included in the “Project Outcomes” section of the RPPR. See the Sample Project Outcomes page for an example.

Registering & Reporting in ClinicalTrials.gov: NIH-defined Phase III Clinical Trials that also meet the definition of an applicable clinical trial must report the results of the valid analysis of group differences in ClinicalTrials.gov. The valid analyses should be done for each primary outcome measure by sex or gender, and race and/or ethnicity. Upon study registration in ClinicalTrials.gov, outcome measures should be pre-specified by sex or gender, and race and/or ethnicity to prepare for reporting results in this stratified manner. Refer to the Guidance for Valid Analysis Reporting and NOT-OD-18-014 for additional information.

Policy Notices and Procedures


Amendment: NIH Policy and Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research	Amendment to the on the inclusion of women and minorities as subjects in clinical research. Includes requirement that recipients conducting applicable NIH-defined Phase III clinical trials ensure results of valid analyses by sex or gender, race, and/or ethnicity are submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov.	November 28, 2017
NIH Policy and Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research – Amended	Updated NIH policy on the inclusion of women and minorities as subjects in clinical research, which supersedes the and .	October 9, 2001
NIH Policy and Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research	Consolidated and concise summary of the on the inclusion of women and minorities in clinical research.	October 9, 2001
NIH Policy on Reporting Race and Ethnicity Data: Subjects in Clinical Research	Additional guidance and instruction for using the revised minimum standards for maintaining, collecting, and presenting data on race and ethnicity.	August 8, 2001


	Infographic that walks through the elements of the existing dataset or resource definition to help users understand whether how it applies to their research.	August 2, 2024
	This one-page resource highlights allowable costs for NIH grants that can be utilized to enhance inclusion through recruitment and retention activities. Allowable costs listed in the NIH Grants Policy Statement are provided with examples of inclusion-related activities.	August 10, 2023
		May 19, 2022
	In Part 1 of this NIH All About Grants podcast miniseries, NIH’s Inclusion Policy Officer Dawn Corbett tells us how to consider inclusion plans when putting together an application.	April 20, 2022
	NIH’s Inclusion Policy Officer Dawn Corbett covers inclusion plans during peer review and post-award in Part 2 of this NIH All About Grants podcast miniseries.	April 20, 2022
: Recruitment and Retention	Document listing resources on recruitment and retention of women, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals across the lifespan. Resources include toolkits, articles, and more.	May 9, 2022
Analyses by Sex or Gender, Race and Ethnicity for NIH-defined Phase III Clinical Trials	Guidance for understanding the definition of valid analysis and links to key resources for investigators and recipeients	March 8, 2022
: Including Diverse Populations in NIH-funded Clinical Research	Video presentation by the NIH Inclusion Policy Officer for the NIH Grants Conference PreCon event, Human Subjects Research: Policies, Clinical Trials, & Inclusion, in December 2022. The presentation explains NIH inclusion policies and requirements for applicants and recipients.	January 27, 2023
	Announcing the availability of data on sex or gender, race, and ethnicity by NIH Research, Condition, and Disease Classification (RCDC) category.	April 11, 2022
Inclusion statistics by NIH RCDC category	Report on the representation of participants in human subjects studies from fiscal years 2018-2021 for FY2018 projects associated with the listed Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) categories.	April 11, 2022
Reporting the Results of Valid Analyses	The "All About Grants" podcast featuring an interview with the Inclusion Policy Officer about valid analysis reporting for the Inclusion of Women and Minorities policy.	August 6, 2018
HSS overview and training information	As of June 9, 2018, the Human Subjects System (HSS) replaced the Inclusion Management System (IMS). Similar to IMS, HSS is used by NIH staff, grant applicants, and recipients to manage human subjects information, including inclusion information.	May 25, 2018
Valid Analysis Reporting in ClinicalTrials.gov for Applicable NIH-Defined Phase III Clinical Trials	This guidance document describes the required ClinicalTrials.gov reporting of valid analysis results for applicable NIH-defined Phase III clinical trials. The guidance includes examples and recommendations for creating the NIH-required outcomes during registration and entering results for reporting.	May 21, 2018
Continuing to Strengthen Inclusion Reporting on NIH-funded Phase III Trials	Blog post by NIH's Deputy Director of Extramural Research, Dr. Mike Lauer describing valid analysis and the reporting requirements for applicable NIH-Defined Phase III clinical trials.	January 8, 2018
Applying the Inclusion of Women and Minorities Policy	A tool for understanding how to monitor inclusion based on sex or gender, race and ethnicity in research.	January 3, 2018
Inclusion of Women and Minorities in Clinical Research	Reports published by the Department of Health and Human Services. The data tables included in these reports provide documentation of the monitoring of inclusion with some degree of analysis.	September, 2017

Upcoming Events

DHSR One pager of resources for external users

Human Subjects Research
NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH)
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
Diversity and Inclusion in Clinical Trials (NIMHD)
For NIH Staff

Have additional questions? Contact your program officer or the Inclusion policy team: [email protected]

IMAGES

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS FOR QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Components of a research
Using Research Instruments: A Guide for Researchers
1: Research Instruments Distribution
Research instruments.
(PDF) QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS Research tools

VIDEO

Music and Musical Instruments
The Role of Basic Research in Innovation
Research Instruments Variable
Research Instruments Data
Upcycle your lab instruments
Lesson 4.3 Research Techniques or Instruments

COMMENTS

PDF Selecting and Describing Your Research Instruments
A concise guide to help you choose and describe the right instruments for your psychology or social science study. Learn how to identify, evaluate, and use different types of instruments and their properties, and follow ethical principles and guidelines.
PDF Research Instrument Examples
A research instrument is a tool to collect, measure, and analyze data for a research project. Learn about different types of research instruments, such as interviews, observations, and surveys, and how to choose and use them.
Research Instruments
A research instrument is a tool you will use to help you collect, measure and analyze the data you use as part of your research. The choice of research instrument will usually be yours to make as the researcher and will be whichever best suits your methodology. There are many different research instruments you can use in collecting data for ...
Home
A research instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to your subject. Research instruments can be tests , surveys , scales , questionnaires , or even checklists . To assure the strength of your study, it is important to use previously validated instruments!
Q: What is a research instrument?
A research instrument is a tool to collect, measure, and analyze data for a study. Learn how to choose and describe the instrument based on the study type and method.
Types of instruments and their properties: Methods to measure variables
This chapter begins by describing the types of research instruments available to us. It then discusses the psychometric properties of an instrument. Types of instruments psychology and social science researchers use to measure variables and constructs fall into four general categories: self-report, interview, observational, and physiological. The chapter describes each category and the ...
Research Instruments
Research instruments are measurement tools, such as questionnaires, scales, and surveys, that researchers use to measure variables in research studies. In most cases, it is better use a previously validated instrument rather than create one from scratch. Always evaluate instruments for relevancy, validity, and reliability.
Welcome
Locating research instruments can be very challenging. Instruments can be tools for either qualitative or quantitative research. Some examples are surveys, questionnaires, tests, and rating scales, but there are many varieties. When looking for these tools, you're generally trying to find either:
Tests, Instruments & Measurement Tools
Test and Instruments are types of Measurement tools, and they are used by researchers and practitioners to aid in the assessment or evaluation of research participants, clients, or patients. The tools are used to measure or collect data on a variety of variables, depending on the research questions.
Selecting and describing your research instruments.
Conducting research can be analogous to cooking a meal for several people. Conducting research also involves planning, proper execution, having adequate resources, and presenting one's project in a meaningful manner. This volume focuses on identifying, choosing, and describing the most valid and appropriate research instruments and measures for our study.
Overview
Finding a research instrument can be time consuming! There are 3 concrete steps in the process:. Identify an appropriate tool or instrument for your research; Assess whether the instrument is valid and reliable; Obtain permission and get the full text; Be aware - published papers and other sources often do not provide access to the full instrument.. Look for a citation and expect to contact ...
Using Research Instruments
Clear, accessible and practical, this guide introduces the first-time researcher to the various instruments used in social research. It assesses a broad range of research instruments - from the well-established to the innovative - enabling readers to decide which are particularly well suited to their research.
Research Instruments (Tests & Measures)
This guide will help you discover resources related to research instruments. This includes information about various measurement tools, including reviews, how to obtain a copy, articles about studies that use various instruments, and more. If you are a doctoral student you may need to find a research instrument for your own use. Other students ...
What is a Research Instrument?
A research instrument is a tool to collect, measure and analyse data for a research study. Learn about the different types of research instruments, such as questionnaires, interviews and observations, and how to choose the best one for your study.
Finding Research Instruments, Surveys, and Tests: Home
A research instrument is developed as a method of data generation by researchers and information about the research instrument is shared in order to establish the credibility and validity of the method. Whether other researchers may use the research instrument is the decision of the original author-researchers. They may make it publicly ...
Research Instruments
Research instruments are measurement tools, such as questionnaires, scales, and surveys, that researchers use to measure variables in research studies. In most cases, it is better to use a previously validated instrument rather than create one from scratch. Always evaluate instruments for relevancy, validity, and reliability.
Selecting and Describing Your Research Instruments on JSTOR
Emerging researchers are often surprised to learn that instrument selection is a complex and important step in the process of research design. The first of its ...
Qualitative Data Collection Instruments: the Most Challenging and
Deciding on the appropriate data collection instrument to use in capturing the needed data to address a research problem as a novice qualitative researchers can sometimes be very challenging.
Research Instruments
CINAHL Plus Research Instruments. CINAHL Plus provides access to research instrument records, research instrument validation records, and research instrument utilization records. These records indicate which studies have used a specific research instrument and include the purpose and variables measured, sample population, methodology, other ...
ERIC
To find instruments about your research topic, use keywords about it in one or more of the search boxes. In the final box, try using this string of words: test* OR measure* OR survey* OR questionnaire* OR scale* OR batter* OR inventor* OR checklist* OR instrument* OR pretest* OR posttest* OR interview*.It's generally unwise to limit to any particular field here, since the name of a test may ...
Research Methods
You can also take a mixed methods approach, where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.. Primary vs. secondary research. Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys, observations and experiments). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e ...
Research Instruments: a Questionnaire and An Interview Guide Used to
These sections include; statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, research design, instrumentation, questionnaire for students, validation of the instrument (face and ...
A Definition of Research Instruments and Their Purpose in ...
The field of research involves a lot of tools, equipment, software, and intellectual property to take an idea from burgeoning seedling to fruition. Every piece has an integral part in the overall puzzle of answering questions and furthering knowledge. Research instruments have their own essential role to play in obtaining data from research subjects.
16.5: Instrument reliability and validity
In biology and biomedical research, there are thousands of kinds of measurements one has to choose among depending on the question at hand. In many cases choices are straightforward: in morphometrics, the instruments of choice will be lengths and areas and shapes quantified by rulers and application of well-defined geometry equations.
The New Research Core Directory is Live!
This new website allows researchers to search and locate shared research facilities, instruments, resources, services, and expertise across UC Davis. This comprehensive directory serves as a one-stop search for all researchers, including faculty, staff, students, and external partners.
A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind
We provide a promising task for future research targeting inter-individual variability of socio-cognitive and socio-affective capacities as well as their precursors and outcomes in healthy minors and clinical populations. ... P., Pittig, R., & Böckler, A. (2021). A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in ...
$241K NSF grant helps experts bring cutting-edge water research
A $241,000 National Science Fund grant has allowed the purchase of an advanced measuring instrument that will transform research capabilities for a group of interdisciplinary GVSU environmental scholars and their students, enabling beneficial high-tech training for undergraduate researchers. The water isotope analyzer offers GVSU researchers ...
Measuring the Realisation of Well-Being Needs of Adolescents
Adolescent well-being is increasingly scrutinized due to its decline. This study was conducted to validate a theory-driven instrument for the measurement of well-being needs with a sample of Dutch adolescents. The short (15-item) Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of well-being (SPF-ILs) measures whether a person's needs for stimulation, comfort, behavioural confirmation ...
Research Guides: AI in Research: Assessing AI Tools
DSS fosters the use of digital content and transformative technology in scholarship and academic activities. We provide consultative and technical support for a wide range of tools and platforms. We work with the campus community to publish, promote, and preserve the digital products of research through consultation, teaching, and systems administration.
Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Participants in Research Involving
Purpose. NIH is mandated by the Public Health Service Act sec. 492B, 42 U.S.C. sec. 289a-2 to ensure the inclusion of women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups in all NIH-funded clinical research in a manner that is appropriate to the scientific question under study. The primary goal of this law is to ensure that research findings can be generalizable to the entire population.

Research Methodologies: Research Instruments

Header Image

Types of Research Instruments

Data Collection

Research Instruments

A research instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to your subject.

Tests, Instruments & Measurement Tools

Researching and Selecting Measurement Tools

Obtaining and Accessing Measurement Tools

Permissions for Measurement Tools

Get Citation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Research Instruments (Tests & Measures)

Research Librarian

This guide will help you discover resources related to research instruments. This includes information about various measurement tools, including reviews, how to obtain a copy, articles about studies that use various instruments, and more.

Community Blog

What is a Research Instrument?

What Makes a Good Research Instrument?

What are the Different Types of Interview Research Instruments?

What are the Different Types of Observation Research Instruments?

Final Comments

Browse PhDs Now

Join Thousands of Students

Finding Research Instruments, Surveys, and Tests: Home

What are Research Instruments

How to choose the right one?

How Locate Instrument

Permission to Use the Test

Subject Guide

Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy

About Research Instruments

Research Instruments

Finding Research Instruments

Important Definitions

Searching By Topic

Searching By Title

Searching For Evaluations

What is ERIC?

Ask a Librarian

Have a language expert improve your writing

Research Methods | Definitions, Types, Examples

Table of contents

Qualitative vs. quantitative data

Primary vs. secondary research

Descriptive vs. experimental data

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Qualitative analysis methods

Quantitative analysis methods

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Is this article helpful?

More interesting articles

"I thought AI Proofreading was useless but.."

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: A QUESTIONNAIRE AND AN INTERVIEW GUIDE USED TO INVESTIGATE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION OBJECTIVES AND THE ATTAINMENT OF CAMEROON'S VISION 2035

What is the Definition of “Research Instrument”?

Characteristics of Solid Research Instruments

The New Research Core Directory is Live!

Latest News & Events

October 17: The Long and Short of It: Assessing the Health Effects of Wildfire Smoke

Yuba Water, UC Davis, Wheatland and Beale Air Force Base Move Forward With Plans for Research

Office Units

$241K NSF grant helps experts bring cutting-edge water research instrument to GVSU

Related Stories

Measuring the Realisation of Well-Being Needs of Adolescents: Validation of the Social Production Function Instrument for the Level of Well-Being–Short (SPF-ILs)

Cite this article

Explore related subjects

1 Introduction

1.1 A Theory-Driven Instrument for the Assessment of Well-Being Needs

1.2 Adolescents’ Physical Well-Being Needs

1.3 Adolescents’ Social Well-Being Needs

1.4 Gender Differences in Well-Being Needs Realisation

1.5 Realisation of Well-Being Needs Over Time

2.1 Participants

2.2 Procedure

2.3 Measures

2.4 Other Well-Being Measures

2.4.1 MHC-SF

2.4.2 PANAS-C

2.4.3 Cantril’s Ladder

2.4.4 RCADS-25

2.5 Socio-Demographic Variables